Legge returns to Formula Renault

[RSportRacer]

I have a copy of the race which i have downloaded, if anyone wishes to see the race, pm me.. the file is 524mb which can prob be transfurred through MSN in a few hours on a broadband connection.

[Snrub]

Legge battled back and forth with her competitors for the entire race. She started off and seemed a little slow, but she really seemed to catch her stride as the race progressed. She strikes me as she might not yet be at the level of say a Fogarty, Valiente, Dalziel or McDowell (last year's Formula Mazda champ), but she looks like she has a lot of potential.

Zwolsman looked VERY strong. I don't know much about him, but I suspect we will be seeing a lot of him this year.

[Sato san]

Originally Posted by Snrub

Legge battled back and forth with her competitors for the entire race.

Originally Posted by mountainstar

Atlantics is just as competitive as it has been in years past.

yes , totally agree there....I watched the race the other night on dvd , and this was a very hard race for her...

Katherine totally deserved to win it . Early on in the race she was overtaken by Rocky Moran Jr and immediatley came back at him at the very next corner , she then drifted slightly wide and Moran Jr came back at her again to take the place . She wasnt giving any room to anyone and was driving with a hard agressive but fair way .

This was a really good race ....she then sat back for about 6 laps or so and then caught the leading pack again taking them ( includiing Moran Jr ) to get the lead ....even though she had a coming together at turn 1 and had slight damage to her car .

Watching her push round Long Beach was very entertaining , you could see how hard she was pushing , using every inch of the track right up to the walls....( thats not easy is it ? )

this was no walk in the park for her....infact it was a bloody enjoyable race i thought .

[ensign14]

2nd win for Katherine...

[Russfeld]

Her Formula Renault pole is still the best thing she's done, and the Rockingham flip the most impressive...

[runshaw]

I remember her on last year's Formula Woman series, where she was one of the instructors when they were trying to find good competent drivers for the series. She spun whilst exiting the pits when showing the passenger how to drive round the circuit, and was sacked as an instructor! But that apart, she is obviously a very good driver and I reckon she has a good career in america ahead of her if the wins keep coming. I just read an article and she said she has only done about 22 car races, so she is not doing to badly considering her experience and she's already achieved more than Danica Patrick did in Toyota Atlantic.

[Russfeld]

Though truth be told Toyota Atlantics 2005 is about as impressive as Class B F3

[runshaw]

Well yes Atlantics isn't a top-line series when comparing it to European single-seater series. But at least it is good for Katherine that the Champ Car teams are probably taking notice of her race wins.

And Russfeld, IMO National Class F3 is more impressive than Toyota Atlantics! When Legge raced in a couple of rounds of Brit F3 in 2003, she was usually at the back or thereabouts battling with Can Artam behind all the ch'ship class cars and class-B cars! It just shows that midfielders/backmarkers in European single seaters can win in American single-seater series. The leader of the Atlantic series Charles Zwolsman was only a midfielder in Euro F3 last year just to show this point again.

[Russfeld]

Well its more a case that the crap European drivers go race each other in America.

[Kicking-back]

And then get hailed by Jeremy Shaw, who should know better, as the next superstar.

[ensign14]

Josy Barthel was the 1500m champion of Luxembourg from 1946 to 1956. He only ever beat crap athletes and was therefore a nonentity.

Except he won the Olympic gold in the 1952 Games. So he was the ultimate big fish in small pond.

You can only beat what's in front of you. You never know...after all, the lower formulae records of the likes of Hunt, Lauda and J Villeneuve were pretty appalling. They got better as the cars got faster.

[No 4]

Originally Posted by Russfeld

Well its more a case that the crap European drivers go race each other in America.

A bit of a sweeping generalisation, Dan Whledon, Darren Manning, Justin Wilson, and Joey Foster are hardly crap an all proven race winners in any country.

The reason why young single seater drivers (particularly those not blessed with family money) go to the US vary. However, the main one is cash.

UK junior single seater racing doesn't attract crowds of any significance. As a consequence TV coverage is poor to non-existant. Therefore, commercial sponsors can see no valid return on supporting drivers.

By contrast, in the US series like Infiniti Pro or Toyota Atlantic run at race meets that attract 100,000+ crowds and which are televised to 16,000,000 households and 198 countries worldwide. Add to this that the promotional marketing of the Indy and Champ Car race weekends are way superior to anything we stage in the UK (other than possibly the F1 meet) and it's not difficult to understand why there's more money circulating in US motorsport.

Therefore, the US teams can attract the sponsor funding that allows them to run their drivers of choice, rather than those drivers with the deepest pockets. Now, wouldn't that be nice to see in the UK. However, don't hold your breathe!!!

[No 4]

I meant Dan Wheldon!!

[Kicking-back]

Originally Posted by No 4

Therefore, the US teams can attract the sponsor funding that allows them to run their drivers of choice, rather than those drivers with the deepest pockets. Now, wouldn't that be nice to see in the UK. However, don't hold your breathe!!!

The Toyota Atlantic teams obviously aren't doing a very good job of it then, as the fields have been in the low teens for the past few seasons.

[No 4]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

The Toyota Atlantic teams obviously aren't doing a very good job of it then, as the fields have been in the low teens for the past few seasons.

Toyota and Infiniti had 14 and 23 cars respectively out last time they raced.

Of the two it is true to say that Infiniti is the better supported and stronger series.

[e12]

Infiniti had 23 cars when?

Both series are undersubscribed and lacking in depth. This past weekend, Infiniti had 12 cars, Atlantic had 14.

[Russfeld]

Originally Posted by No 4

A bit of a sweeping generalisation, Dan Whledon, Darren Manning, Justin Wilson, and Joey Foster are hardly crap an all proven race winners in any country.

The reason why young single seater drivers (particularly those not blessed with family money) go to the US vary. However, the main one is cash.

UK junior single seater racing doesn't attract crowds of any significance. As a consequence TV coverage is poor to non-existant. Therefore, commercial sponsors can see no valid return on supporting drivers.

By contrast, in the US series like Infiniti Pro or Toyota Atlantic run at race meets that attract 100,000+ crowds and which are televised to 16,000,000 households and 198 countries worldwide. Add to this that the promotional marketing of the Indy and Champ Car race weekends are way superior to anything we stage in the UK (other than possibly the F1 meet) and it's not difficult to understand why there's more money circulating in US motorsport.

Therefore, the US teams can attract the sponsor funding that allows them to run their drivers of choice, rather than those drivers with the deepest pockets. Now, wouldn't that be nice to see in the UK. However, don't hold your breathe!!!

Wow, you're so far off base I dont even know where to start, so I guess ill go in order. Manning and Wilson went into the premier US series, that doesnt really count. Foster's meh, Wheldon was promising, and to his credit went over when American racing was much stronger.

The myth of cash in the US is bogus. Its more expensive than European racing, and has less coverage. Right now a series like GP2 is getting more TV exposure than everything bar F1 and WRC, and even thats probably a push.

I used to work for an absolutely *top* CART team and had access to all the media and marketing materials of everything that raced stateside, inluding NASCAR. If you win an Atlantic race, it was worth about $10,000 in exposure to your sponsor, against a $1mil season's budget.

[fantasytoca]

I think regardless of the strength of the rest of the field Katherine should be congratulated on another great win.

Whatever the reasons, the move to the States has boosted her from an 'also ran' to someone with almost celebrity status (though reading the press I think she's getting sick of the comparisons to Danica)

Just look at the column inches of coverage she's getting in newspapers stateside (and not just the motoring press but local press in each city Toyota Atlantics are appearing in too) - most junior formulae drivers over here wet their pants with excitement if they get a one paragraph mention in the National pages of Autosprout - the sort of coverage Katherines is now receiving is good news for her sponsors and good news for Katherine - the more coverage you get the more chance there is that the right people will get to read it.

Also if the field is not so strong but that means you can win races more regularly does that not show a sense of maturity in choosing which series to race in - better to be in a junior formula and lead from the front than another formula and be an also ran who then has to struggle for years to find more sponsorship

[No 4]

Hear, hear!!

[StickShift]

Say what you will about how talented she may or may not be, or how competitive the Atlantics field may or may not be, but I think it was a very smart move to go to Atlantics. Legge will probably be moved up to a Cart or an IRL ride in the next year or two as a result of her success in Atlantics and the Danica-effect.

It will be a much better end result than she could have got in Europe.

[Mr Jinxx]

You don't get to Champ Car or IRL without a test or two first.

[No 4]

Agreed, but when you happen to be backed by Kevin Kalkhoven, who as I'm sure everyone knows owns Champ Car, then I'm sure getting a test won't be too much of a problem!!

I agree that Katherine has made a shrewd move. UK/European motorsport is littered with talented drivers who's careers are going nowhere because of lack of money. Better to go to the US and do well over there, as at the end of the day people remember winners, almost irrespective of the quality of the championship the've won.

[Kicking-back]

So the basic advice is - if you can't cut it in a competitive series, go to Toyota Atlantic and you might win.

[No 4]

No, that is not what I said.

The issue isn't whether or not a driver can 'cut it in a competitive series', as if they lack funds or only have a limited amount of money, clearly they are unlikely to be so. Hardly rocket science.

What I did say is that if a driver is not fortunate enough to have family money or corporate money behind them, and many don't, then (like Katherine) they are better going into international championships where there is a) a chance of securing subsidised seat and b) of being on the podium.

I repeat again, people remember winners, not losers.

[fantasytoca]

We can argue till the cows come home about whether Toyota Atlantics are a competitive series - but they certainly pull in the crowds - over 60,000 people there in Edmonton on Friday for free practice - the day any British junior formula can pull 60,000 people for race day let alone free practice will be a miracle (come to think of it British Formula 3 is doing well if it attracts 6000 - so what are they doing to promote their junior series stateside that we are not doing over here?)