NASCAR to a T: Legge, Suarez Incident Offers Chance to Review NASCAR’s Approval System

The NASCAR Cup Series debut of Katherine Legge should have been another milestone moment in the long career of one of the most accomplished female racers of her generation.

It also should’ve been a good opportunity for NASCAR to have a woman driver racing at its highest level again. It’s a shame that’s not what ended up happening.

Putting it simply, Legge’s Cup Series debut at Phoenix Raceway was not an ideal one. A fairly decent level of anticipation followed Live Fast Motorsports’ announcement that she would be driving their No. 78 Chevrolet. She brought with her two decades of experience in IndyCar and sports cars, along with select starts in the Xfinity Series.

However, it wasn’t a good look when Legge self-spun in the opening laps of the race just trying to get a handle on her car at the back of the pack.

It wasn’t a particularly good look, either, the second time she went around.

For much of the day, Legge did her job making laps, keeping the fenders on and just trying to stay out of the way of the leaders. That’s what she was doing with 97 laps to go, when she was running far to the inside in turns 1 and 2 yielding to the leaders as lapped traffic — until she washed up on corner exit, clipping Josh Berry and then spinning out, taking out sixth-place Daniel Suarez as a result.

It was unfortunate, because Legge’s accident and the fact that it took out a car running inside the top 10 shouldn’t be a referendum on her. A well-respected veteran racer made a rookie mistake that might happen to anyone.

Nor should it be a referendum on women in racing (based on some of the particularly loathsome comments on my socials I had the displeasure of sampling).

It should, however, be a referendum on what put her in that position. And it already is.

The way Legge’s Cup debut ended has led to a necessary discussion about NASCAR’s approvals process and why exactly she was fast-tracked into a Cup car with a combination of little experience in stock cars and little time to prepare.

Speaking to reporters in Phoenix, Legge had shared that her opportunity to race in Cup came together in about 10 days, with most of her preparation coming by virtue of simulation work and her first laps coming in practice on Saturday.

Simply put, that’s not nearly enough time. Everyone should know that. The driver who had his race spoiled by the incident certainly does.

“There’s nothing wrong with her,” Suarez said during a conversation shared in his YouTube vlog. “What is wrong is NASCAR. They cannot allow somebody with no experience to run in the Cup Series. Plain and simple. You go to Las Vegas, to a fast track, it’s freaking dangerous. You cannot do that. And then here, honestly, this is not a so slow pace. Like, I hit her and I was running 100 mph, slowing down already.”

The Legge incident is something of a fly in the ointment, as NASCAR has made it easier for drivers from other racing series and international backgrounds to come to the Cup Series and try their hand at the sport’s highest levels.

To date, there hadn’t been much of a problem: International racers like Kimi Raikkonen, Kamui Kobayashi, Jenson Button and Mike Rockenfeller were able to quickly acclimate to Cup racing. Shane van Gisbergen, now a full-time Cup driver after winning in his debut, proved an outlier in a very good way.

It was likely just a matter of time, though, before an incident like this occurred.

During Speedweeks, a similarly-avoidable situation attributable to a lack of experience in Cup cars during the Duel races was when Helio Castroneves hit the wall, while attempting to drive his damaged car back to pit road under caution. That’s just one anecdote showing that for even long-tenured and accomplished drivers in other forms of racing, seat time and having a feel for how to handle the car in certain situations is vital and can’t be substituted with mere cram sessions in a simulator.

Because of cost controls and how ubiquitous and advanced racing simulators have become, actual on-track test sessions have become more and more marginalized in today’s NASCAR outside of tire tests and the occasional acclimation test.

As a result, drivers like Legge are put in a position where the laps they spend just trying to shake down their cars, understand how it’s supposed to drive and ultimately gain comfort and confidence, are happening on a race weekend themselves — in a live environment where they’re expected to keep pace and whatever mistakes they make affect more than just them.

I don’t think the answer to avoiding a similar issue in the future is a complete overhaul of NASCAR’s licensing and approvals system. Parker Kligerman and Landon Cassill‘s The Money Lap bandied about the idea NASCAR adopting a licensing system similar to F1’s, which is a thought-provoking idea that isn’t without merit, but one that I’m not sure wouldn’t come with its own set of issues.

Ask anyone about F1’s “super license” and how Colton Herta hasn’t been able to get one despite his resume in IndyCar.

What I think the issue is here is that instead of being given more of a runway to get in a Cup car and learn the basics of it, Legge was thrown in the deep end and told to start swimming due in part to current ideas of what constitutes being prepared to race at NASCAR’s highest level.

To Legge’s credit, she was about 100 laps from accomplishing her goal and earning a respectable finish. It’s a shame that didn’t end up happening, in part because her runway to her first Cup start came in less than two weeks and with little-to-no time to test.

In future, I think the simple solution to what happened in Phoenix lies in NASCAR offering a formal, extended opportunity for drivers who have not driven a Cup car before to get behind the wheel, make the mistakes they need to and improve through testing. The logistics shouldn’t be too difficult, and they should resemble any other test NASCAR conducts — In fact, it might be useful to have that occur first thing to start a race weekend if reducing costs for teams through regulated testing is that much of a concern.

If there’s any positive to be drawn from this incident, it should at least lead NASCAR to take the steps necessary to ensure that its efforts to attract star drivers from other racing disciplines is bolstered by the knowledge that they’re as prepared as they can possibly be. And in Legge’s case, the positive should be that she’ll be the last of these drivers who has to learn how to race in Cup the hard way.

Steven Taranto