When it comes to female race car drivers and female fans/TV viewers, NASCAR is the name of the game, much more than IndyCar. We saw that with Danica Patrick, who, after seven years in IndyCar, jumped to NASCAR, only to see her popularity, brand recognition, sponsorship availability, fan interest, and TV ratings jump exponentially. It’s kind of the same way with veteran female racer Katherine Legge.
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After several stints in IndyCar and its CART predecessor, the native of England native is somewhat following in Patrick’s footsteps and trying to carve out a new racing niche for herself in stock car racing, even at the advanced age (in NASCAR terms) of 44.
Aiding Legge in the transition from open-wheel racing to NASCAR is new sponsorship from e.l.f. Cosmetics, which it was announced Thursday will sponsor her in at least seven NASCAR races through the remainder of this season, with at least one NASCAR Cup and six Xfinity Series events.
Legge doesn’t have much time to prepare for her first race under the e.l.f. banner: She races next Saturday, April 19, in the Xfinity Series event at Rockingham (North Carolina) Speedway.
It’s not that Legge isn’t necessarily giving up on IndyCar — e.l.f. sponsored her in the Indianapolis 500 in both 2023 and 2024 — but rather, she sees a greater opportunity for herself and her brand with NASCAR (Patrick was 28 when she made her Xfinity Series debut and nearly 30 when she went full-time in Cup).
“I’ve never felt more empowered than I do with e.l.f. by my side,” Legge said Thursday in a media release. “e.l.f. truly walks the walk when it comes to putting its community—and especially women in sports — in the, pun-intended, driver’s seat. I’m thrilled to work towards achieving my racing goals with my e.l.f. team alongside Team Chevy.
“I want to be respected as one of the best drivers in motorsport and there is no better place to hone my skill set against the best of the best in front of the largest motorsport audience in the U.S. With the pivot to go all in on NASCAR, we are diversifying my own racing legacy as well as the paddock for future generations.”
Legge’s NASCAR Cup Debut Last Month Was Far From A Success
Prior to Thursday’s announcement, Legge had planned on taking part in only a few NASCAR Cup races this season, including her first career Cup start last month (March 9) at Phoenix, making her the first female driver to compete in a Cup race since Patrick’s last NASCAR race in 2018. She finished 30th of 37 drivers at Phoenix, crashing out into Bubba Wallace about two-thirds of the way through the 312-lap race.
Wallace’s spotter, Freddy Kraft, roundly criticized both NASCAR and Legge for her being in the race.
With it appearing likely Legge would not return to the Indy 500 this year, and with e.l.f.’s desire to expand its brand to female NASCAR fans, both the company and Legge coming to NASCAR was a natural fit.
There’s more overall TV viewers race to race, more female viewers as well, healthy crowds of female fans in-person at-track and a much broader female demographic overall in NASCAR than IndyCar.
It was pretty much a no-brainer of a decision.
“As they say in NASCAR, we have found our groove,” Kory Marchisotto, Chief Marketing Officer, e.l.f. Beauty, also said in the media release. “Fueling Katherine’s dream to be one of the best motorsports drivers of all time is our mission.
“Inspiring young athletes to fast-track their own ambitions is our passion. Female NASCAR fans are more likely to watch sports on TV, listen on the radio, and attend a live event than female fans of other sports. That’s our signal to lean the e.l.f. in with zero distance between us and the community.”
While not the sole exclusive reason for Legge to go all-in on NASCAR, admittedly, the TV ratings of last month’s IndyCar race — The Thermal Grand Prix near Palm Springs, Calif. — left a lot to be desired for IndyCar.
The Thermal race saw a 50 percent drop in ratings from the season opener three weeks earlier in St. Petersburg, Fla. (1.42 million at its peak in the telecast, vs. 704,000 viewers at the peak of The Thermal event, per BlackbookMotorsport).
And, frankly, the only IndyCar race that ever consistently outdraws NASCAR races in head-to-head competition on the same day is the Indianapolis 500.
NBC Sports and its subsidiaries televised IndyCar for 16 years, from 2009 through 2024. FOX Sports took over this year and will televise all 17 of this season’s races — all in prime weekend time and all exclusively on FOX (and not on FS1 or FS2).
However, one of the reasons NBC yielded to FOX was that 2024 overall ratings were down from 2023 ratings — which had been the highest in IndyCar since the 2011 season.
Fans and media alike appear to be somewhat mixed on NASCAR vs. IndyCar TV coverage this season, which again potentially played into both Legge’s and e.l.f.’s strategies to forego IndyCar in favor of NASCAR:
“Disappointing to see that sponsor go down south when it could have been on a car at the #Indy500,” said IndyCar influencer David Land.
On a car at Indy, never too be seen on TV. Go for the exposure. One race vs the series. Do the math.
— bluedog373 productions (@bluedog373) April 10, 2025
One fan mentioned, “One a car at Indy, never to be seen on TV. Go for the exposure. One race vs. the series. Do the math.” Another person mentioned, “IndyCar is slowly dying. IndyCar execs don’t care.”
“There’s no sugar coating this one… Penske Entertainment screwed this up BIG time. Kat brings eye balls, a killer sponsor, and an under represented demographic. How do you mess up a gift handed to you on a silver platter? Sheer stupidity,” mentioned another person over social media.
