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Grand Prix of Long Beach: Legge, Monk carry women in motorsports flag well

April 13, 2023

Katherine Legge and Sheena Monk are a couple of determined, resilient race car drivers. That they are women might be neither here nor there, but they are part of the growing population of women in motorsports.

Legge, of England, has been around for quite a while, having made her first big splash as a driver in the U.S. by winning the Champ Car Atlantic race at the Grand Prix of Long Beach in 2005.

Monk, of Newton, Pa., has been driving competitively since 2017 and she made a name for herself by not only surviving a wicked high-speed crash into the tires at Laguna Seca in 2018 that left her with nine broken bones after her car went airborne but by coming back to continue her incredible passion for racing.

Legge got through her own crash two years later while testing in France, suffering two broken legs – one was badly broken – that had her in a wheelchair for some time.

Tough, indeed.

Along the way, they have become a shining example to other women aspiring to join the motorsports world in some capacity.

Just last year this newspaper did a story on three women working as either engineers or mechanics for Chip Ganassi Racing, one of the premier IndyCar teams.

Legge and Monk will be driving partners for Gradient Racing on Saturday in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar series race at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. They make up the only full-time all-female team in the series, which is the main support race for Sunday’s NTT IndyCar main event.

Legge, 42, and Monk, 34, on Wednesday shared their journey and their happiness about the rising number of women in motorsports.

“I think you can say across the board that it’s growing because it’s becoming more normal and less gimmicky and more acceptable,” Legge said. “You see it, you can be it. I think even fans, right? You couldn’t really market to female fans 20 years ago, but now the demographic is significantly more equal and so I think it’s just across the board.”

She thinks it’s in line with what is happening globally.

“If you look at the way population in society is developing, there are more women running companies, there are more women running countries, there are more women doing all the things that were taboo a hundred years ago,” Legge said. “And motorsports are a reflection of that in some way, shape or form.”

Legge is on the board of the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission, which began in 2009 as a way to support women in motorsports in every aspect. Jim Michaelian, CEO of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach, supports it wholeheartedly.

“It’s a fabulous initiative,” he said. “We certainly need and welcome more female drivers in all of the various series, including the opportunity to compete in the NTT IndyCar series on a full-time basis. … And the byproduct of that is the public – if you remember back when Danica Patrick was running – the public is very engaged in their exploits and to see how they’re doing.

“So I think the more the better as far as that whole initiative is concerned.”

Monk said her father was a professional motorcycle racer, which drew her to racing. But she was a lover of cars, thus the path she chose. She recalls the early days when there were no true peers with whom to share her passion.

“I could talk to other boys about cars, but very few girls in my life understood,” Monk said. “I used to read the car magazines cover to cover. At the school library, I would take out books about cars and it was really unrelatable, right?”

That is changing, and she loves it.

“In general, to see women that are more involved in any capacity at the race track, it’s just neat to have that kind of camaraderie and just understand that there are people like you because again, growing up, I never really had that,” Monk said.

When Monk had her accident in September 2018, she saw the ugly side of what some think about women driving race cars. She broke her pelvis in four places, broke her sacrum and also sustained four broken ribs.

“At the time of the accident, I remember a lot of the comments were directed toward me like, this is why they shouldn’t let women race, and she shouldn’t have been texting, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing, or she’s not strong enough to drive the car,” she said.

Monk admits it hurt, especially with her family seeing the same comments, but it did not deter her.

She said when her brother asked her if she was going to race again while she was in the hospital, her initial reaction was to tell him she was done. A second later, she knew that was not the right answer.

“As soon as the words came out of my mouth, it was like, ‘No, that’s so wrong,’” she said.

Of course, it was.

“I think what brought me back was just, you know, it’s hard to be that passionate and that interested for your entire life, like literally obsessed, with one thing and then you finally get an opportunity and just because there is strife and struggle, to just give it away?” she said.

She said she has since had former Formula 1 drivers tell her they did not know if they would have come back after suffering all those injuries.

“I think people knew that I was serious about wanting to do this after that point,” Monk said.

As for Legge, she jokingly said if doctors knew what she did to figure out if it was right to come back after her accident, they “would kill me.” She had to know if she was going to be both physically and mentally capable of continuing her driving career.

Legge was still in her wheelchair at the time and coaching a friend for a race. She got out of her wheelchair and entered the car.

“I drove it on track just to see if I still got it, I can still do it,” Legge said. “Obviously, I didn’t drive very fast, I didn’t take any risks. But I felt fine being in the car again and got rid of those worries and that actually helped me be able to get through the rehab and the physical therapy and everything that I needed to get through to get back to racing.”

Tough as they can be.

Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America 2018. Race 1 Laguna Seca Raceway. Sheena Monk Huge Crash – YouTube
Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach: Trio embraces Women In Motorsports campaign
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Orange County Register

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Grand Prix of Long Beach: Legge, Monk carry women in motorsports flag well

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