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The #0 DeltaWing Racing Cars DeltaWing DWC13 driven by Andy Meyrick, Katherine Legge, Alexander Rossi and Gabby Chaves races during practice for the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway on Jan. 23, 2014, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (Jerry Markland\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
From The Detroit News:\u00a0http:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/article\/20140301\/AUTO03\/303010019#ixzz2ukH0f1Lz<\/a>Ask driving ace Katherine Legge her favorite racing memory and she\u2019ll tell you her first start at the Indy 500 … and her massive crash at Wisconsin\u2019s Road America in 2006. Come again?<\/p>\n \u201cMy rear wing came off at and I instantly lost 1,000 pounds of down force on my car. I hit the wall at 180 mph,\u201d she says about an incident\u00a0immortalized on YouTube<\/a>. \u201cI still feel lucky to have walked away from that crash.\u201d<\/p>\n Legge is one tough cookie.<\/p>\n A rare lioness among the lions of professional auto racing, the British-born Legge is one of America\u2019s Big 3 female drivers along with NASCAR\u2019s Danica Patrick and IndyCar veteran Simona De Silvestro. \u201cAs a woman you develop a very thick skin,\u201d she told a room full of high school students at the girls-only Detroit International Academy this week, part of the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix\u2019s promotional tour before the May 30-June 1 race weekend. Unlike many jockeys in the expensive world of motorsport, she rose from modest roots.<\/p>\n Her resume includes top drives in Europe, but America \u2014 where she got her first big break in ChampCar in 2006 \u2014 is her professional home. This year, the Indianapolis-based racer is behind the wheel of the radically-designed DeltaWing prototype car in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship (which will be part of the Belle Isle race weekend). She sat down with me to talk about Danica, DeltaWing, and Detroit pickups.<\/p>\n HP:\u00a0<\/b>What do you like about the Detroit Grand Prix?<\/p>\n Legge:<\/b>\u00a0I like the atmosphere. It\u2019s obviously very special to the fans. It\u2019s definitely one of the bumpiest tracks.<\/p>\n HP:<\/b>\u00a0How is the Delta Wing different to drive?<\/p>\n Legge:<\/b>\u00a0To look at it\u2019s very unusual, very futuristic, and ground-breaking. But to drive? It drives like any other race car, which is very strange. Before I got in it I called Andy Meyrick, my co-driver, and said: How do I drive this thing? Because you look at it with its little tires and you think, how is it going to turn?<\/p>\n HP:<\/b>\u00a0There are so few women drivers. You, Danica Patrick, and DiSimone De Silvestra are the best known female drivers in U.S. racing. Is there a sorority there? Are you in competition with each other?<\/p>\n Legge:<\/b>\u00a0No, there\u2019s no competition. We get on fine, but we don\u2019t stick together really because we\u2019re all trying to forge our own careers. Maybe if we were in the same racing circuit we\u2019d hang out more. But we\u2019re not, so we don\u2019t. It\u2019s circumstances. We were in different series. Danica was in IndyCar while I was in ChampCar so it was a rival series. We\u2019ve maybe said hi to each other three times in my life.<\/p>\n
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