Legge reaches out to Larson for advice on how to approach Indy/Charlotte double

What do you do when you’re about to attempt "The Double" for the first time? You reach out to the last driver to run the run the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, and thanks to reigning NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Larson, Katherine Legge was able to gather some great advice from the former Arrow McLaren driver.

“I spoke to Kyle Larson about how he found it and what tips and tricks and like, how do I get through it?” Legge told RACER. “What do I need in the way of IVs and food and everything else? He was super helpful. So he's been awesome. Obviously, he's done it the last two years. He has a good frame of reference. He was unlucky with the weather, so I'm gonna leave that to the hands of the weather gods.”

Legge has the AJ Foyt Racing/HMD Motorsports IndyCar team to focus on for the rest of the week and some of the following ahead of the May 24 double that starts in Indiana and shifts to North Carolina with her Live Fast Motorsports Cup team. The e.l.f.-sponsored veteran is also supported by Chevrolet, which will power the quest to complete 1,100 miles of racing in open-wheel and stock car disciplines.

“I think it's a fantastic opportunity,” she added. “I said, 'Do you think we should do it next year instead?' And (her sponsors) said, ‘Well, we don't know that that opportunity comes around more than once.’ So I said, ‘Why not?’ Because, why not, right? Like, you'll only regret the things that you choose not to do. So I'm excited about it. It's a lot, but there's not many people who get the opportunity to do that, so I feel very grateful and excited about it.”

As the only brand-new team at the Indy 500 with Indy NXT champions HMD Motorsports signed to run her car on behalf of AJ Foyt Racing, Legge has been working with the last-minute program to find more speed with the No. 11 Chevy. Wednesday was a case study in frustration as her best lap of 220.985mph left the Briton 33rd among the 33 drivers.

“I was happy last week when we came and I did my refresher (test at IMS),” she said. “I was super happy with the car, and I felt like we were going to be fast. We were fast by ourselves, and we didn't tow with anybody. And then yesterday, we were really struggling, like I was struggling to be flat. We didn't know what happened. They found some things on the (chassis setup) pad, and they did a really good job. And we were happy again earlier today, and we were mid-pack, no-tow speeds, and I thought, ‘OK, we'll go out and play in traffic,’ as my mom calls it, and get a tow speed on the board. But it wasn't to be.

“We kind of lost the balance, and I wasn't able to suck up and stay flat to get there. So we're gonna go back to the drawing board. I'm very fortunate that we have more days of practice coming up, so we'll get it dialed in, and we'll figure out what it is that gets us out of that window, because we'll avoid doing that as much as you know. It's always good to know the things not to do as well as the things to do.”