Katherine Legge is double-booked for Memorial Day weekend. The veteran British racing driver will be attempting to become the first woman to complete the Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 double on May 24th.
Legge has raced in the Indy 500 four times with her best finish of 22nd coming in 2012. Her most recent result was 29th in 2024.
She has made seven NASCAR Cup Series starts over the past two seasons, but has only raced at Charlotte Motor Speedway once in the Xfinity Series, when she finished 36th last year.
Legge will be driving for HMD Motorsports/A.J. Foyt Racing in the 500 and Live Fast Motorsports in the Coca-Cola 600, with both cars sponsored by e.l.f Cosmetics.
“It’s an exciting time,” Legge told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s another groundbreaking thing that I can showcase to the world really that, if you set your mind to things, you can do anything, and you can do things that maybe you never even dreamt of before.”
Pulling off “The Double” requires a tremendous physical and logistical effort combined with a lot of good luck. The Indy 500 typically ends just before 4 p.m, if things go well. Drivers then jump out of their cars and race to a helicopter that takes them to a nearby airport for a 70-minute private jet flight to Charlotte, where they get into another helicopter for the trip to Charlotte Motor Speedway, where they need to be in their NASCAR Cup Series cars by around 6 p.m.
Just five drivers have attempted “The Double” across 12 occasions to date. Tony Stewart is the only one who managed to complete all 1,100 miles, when he finished 9th in the Indy 500 and 4th in the Coca-Cola 600 in 1999. Kyle Larson’s attempt in 2024 was thwarted by weather delays that kept him from competing in the Coca-Cola 600. He gave it another shot in 2025 and managed to make the two starts, but crashed out of both races and said afterward that he doesn’t think he’ll try it again.
“The Double is just a tough undertaking,” he said after leaving the infield care center at Charlotte. “I think the window of time is too tight. Even if I didn’t wreck [at Indy], I don’t think I would have made it here in time and probably would have had to end that race short anyway.”
