TRUECar delivers a blow to women racers
IndyCar, IndyCar commentary — By Steph Wallcraft on February 14, 2013 12:28 pmWere I one of the racers being supported by the TRUECar Racing Women Empowered initiative, I’d be a little worried and a lot disappointed at the moment.
The story we’ve been following all week goes like this:
- Sebastian Saavedra is announced for the second seat at Dragon Racing for the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season;
- Katherine Legge is stunned to learn that her team and sponsor have been scooped out from under her and issues a retaliatory statement threatening legal action;
- Dragon Racing owner Jay Penske and TRUECar CEO Scott Painter release statements in response that effectively say, if you read between the lines (“sincere efforts to resurrect Katherine’s open-wheel career”; “decided to pursue a different driver”) — sorry, Kat, but you just weren’t good enough.
There are a few different ways of looking at this situation, and none of them bode well for the development of women racers.
Let’s start the discussion with one indisputable fact: every sponsor has a right to expect reasonable return on investment for its sponsorship dollars.
But the exact definition of “reasonable return on investment” changes depending on each sponsor’s goals.
Some sponsors are more than happy to support cars that run consistently at the back so long as the driver turns up smiling at appearances and represents the company well.
We have to assume, for example, that CITGO fell into this camp with Milka Duno — as a company, it certainly didn’t seem to mind being represented by a driver who was friendly and pretty but was consistently criticized and ridiculed for her on-track performance. (Of course, there were international political influences involved in that situation as well, but those fall outside the scope of this discussion.)
Let’s be clear: Katherine Legge is no Milka Duno. There wasn’t a person in motorsport who questioned Kat’s credentials as a racer after she walked away from that horrific crash at Road America in 2006.
But is Katherine Legge a proven winner at the top ranks? Frankly, the statistics on that are widely available.
Generally speaking, there seem to be two camps on Kat. Some people feel she has talent but was pushed through the development ladder too quickly after being earmarked as Champ Car’s answer to Danica Patrick. Proponents of this angle argue that she may have performed better had she been allowed to develop her career at a more appropriate pace.
Others feel that Kat never has and never will have the chops to be a driver at the top and that she was undeservedly handed a career based on her gender alone.
Either way, there aren’t very many people claiming that Katherine should be winning a whole lot of races. Heck, that question remains open even at the prospect of her being placed in, say, a Penske car.
So, since TRUECar’s expectation of ROI evidently weighs heavily on statistics, it appears that as far as Kat’s ability is concerned, they were oversold.
What TRUECar is about to learn is whether they were oversold by Katherine Legge or by Jay Penske. (The answer, of course, most likely lies in some combination of the two.)
To look at the opposite perspective, though: for an organization that claims a desire to “resurrect Katherine’s open-wheel career,” they sure didn’t give her much of a chance. Regardless of the aforementioned precedent, a patchwork season filled with engine woes and team disarray was hardly qualifies as a shot at resurrecting a career. Kat was well within her rights to expect and demand a do-over in 2013.
The saddest part of this situation, though, is that through TRUECar’s clear placement of all its expectations on on-track results — as opposed to, say, driver visibility or the extreme marketability of the Women Empowered initiative, both of which have been vastly underused to this point in the partnership — TRUECar has weakened the intent of its initiative considerably.
The young, brilliant women, full of potential, still racing under the TRUECar umbrella thought they had found a home — a place where they didn’t need to add the search for financial support to their already-burdensome efforts to convince the world that they can compete equally with, and even outperform, men on a racetrack.
Now, after watching their brand’s ambassador and their season-long mentor get tossed aside after only a year in the role, career insecurity has returned. Simply being out there to learn and gain experience can no longer be counted on as being good enough. TRUECar is clearly leaning heavily on results, and these drivers will now feel far more pressure to perform, even more so than they may have if they had opted to continue their careers outside the program.
“Good,” some people will say. “They should have to perform. No male drivers get handed money for being men — if the ladies can’t hack it on equal terms, let them fail.”
Granted, that’s hard to argue with. Racing is about aiming to win and not much else.
But the day most women in this sport dream of is when female drivers are no longer exceptional — when they’ve achieved equal success and respect for long enough that gender no longer factors into discussions at all.
We’re not there yet. To hit that mark, we need to give talented women just a little bit more of a boost.
I, for one, had hoped the TRUECar Women Empowered initiative might give its drivers the stable foundation needed to learn, develop their skills, and achieve success over the longer term, providing they continue to demonstrate improvement — a luxury some say Katherine Legge was never afforded.
TRUECar, it seems, doesn’t have the patience for that.
Let’s hope that the situation between TRUECar and Katherine Legge is a one-off deal – or, should TRUECar opt to discard this noble goal, that another sponsor can see the immense value of stepping into those high-heeled shoes and give women in racing the shot they deserve.
Tags: Katherine Legge
Having your “brand’s ambassador and their season-long mentor” be nothing more then a laughing stock (who might have been better then Milka but not by much) hurts your brand and the idea of women in IndyCar far more then not having her in the series at all. Can you honestly tell me that you would prefer to have Katherine Legge as the face of women in Indy over Simona De Silvestro??? The number of women in the series has went down but I’ll bet your the average finishing position goes up.
Was Kat really THAT much of an embarrassment last year? Here are the stats: 6 starts with a non-Lotus engine, almost zero test miles (as close to zero as you can imagine in pre-season), 1 top-10 finish. To me, that says “mid-packer”, not “laughing stock”. And among this group of drivers, “mid-pack” is no faint praise.
Anyway, it sucks for her to get chucked out like this. I hate it. Time will tell if she ever gets the time to actually develop into whatever her potential will allow, but a smattering of starts with questionable teams with questionable equipment…there’s no way anybody short of a Senna or a Schumacher would excel in those circumstances. Best of luck to her finding her way into a team that won’t screw her over at the first opportunity.
Let’s not pretend that she has never been in a competitive ride she was in an Audi car (when Audi dominated the series) in DTM and was a backmarker there too!!!
She did get 1 top-10 finish (she was a lap down and in the way) but through survival she did finish 9th. But was that the norm or the fluke? I know the Lotus was underpowered but just compare her to the other Lotus cars. She was the only one who was even close to the 105% rule at non-oval races. She made the cut in quals every time but did get parked during the race for make meeting that standard a couple of times early in the season. That doesn’t really say “mid-packer” to me that says someone who doesn’t deserve to be in the series.
For real? A 9th place means nothing because it’s a lap down 9th place? And “in the way”? That’s not how I remember Fontana. I do remember Kat running in the lead pack and well inside the top-10, until the first round of stops. Yes, she made her mistakes, as a lot of folks did that day, but soldiered on for a 9th place (ahead of a bunch of chumps, I suppose, by this line of reasoning). I’m also fully aware of the fact that Kat finished DFL of the drivers who contested every round of the DTM in 2009 and 2010, but seeing as how she was a career open wheel driver before that entre into tintops, I’m not sure who would have expected her to light the world on fire. As for last year’s comparison to the other Lotuses, don’t mind if I do! St. Pete: faster in qualifying than Bourdais (though Sebass had a problem of some sort…remember, Dragon tested like 2 total days before practice started at St. Pete, 1.5 days for Sebastien and a 1/2 day for Katherine…not sure who would have expected them to be close to the pace there). Barber: yes, slowest of all, but just 0.3 seconds behind that chump Servia (again, still no testing miles of note). Long Beach: last, but only 0.06 behind Simona (again, still no testing miles). Sao Paulo: last, and I will give you that she looked out of sorts there, since she was a full second off of Simona. Indy: got Chevy at last second, had janky setup that Sebass had to sniff out, put it in the show and stayed out of the way all day (which was about all that could be said about Sebass and about a half a dozen other “talentless” drivers that day). Only twisty that she got to run with a Chevy was Snorenoma: outqualified Josef, Ed and Simona (who was still driving the boat anchor), was within 0.3 seconds of Jakes and Viso. Was she at the back most of the time? Lord, yes. An embarrassment? Again, in my opinion, no, given the fact that she barely sat in the car other than at the actual events all season and was getting yanked in and out of the car on a week to week basis by a team owner who has been seen to be less than stable over the course of the last 5 years, but I guess YMMV.
Look, I am by no means trying to say that she’s a future champion or even trying to say that she’d be a lock to even win a race in the forseeable future, just that she’s never really had a stable enough shot for some of us (that’d be me) to declare that they’ve definitively seen all that she can do. Here’s the facts: she had a 2-year contract. Dragon broke it. Unless there was some performance clause in there (not that she was really given much of a shot to make any such clauses with all of the constraints I listed above) that allowed Dragon to terminate that contract, they’re obligated to either honor that contract (fat chance now, obviously) or pay her off (we’ll have to see what happens there). That’s all that any of us can really say at this point.
I am not going to argue whether Kat is a potential mid-packer or back marker but I will point out that she finished right behind her teammate in the 2012 season and drove 1 less race then Bourdais. I think the struggles of last season are more a team issue than a driver issue. Personally I feel she deserves a second season to prove herself. If she is still not producing then True Car does not have to renew her contract.
The biggest problem I have with the situation is that Kat developed the relationship with True Car (2yr contract), brought them to Dragon Racing and was then pushed aside.
Based on JP’s behavior last season, I am more likely to believe Katherine’s side of things. Remember Jay Penske was the one who made IndyCar a bunch of promises about brand building and fan engagement in return for Leader Circle money and at this moment, their website is still nonexistent and the only member of the team that posts or engages fans on twitter is Katherine. Personally I do not think True Car is going to get any better returns this season…regardless of the driver.
This is an interesting argument. While saying that because Katherine with her 10 starts beat the next best Saavedra with his 3 starts and Bourdais with his 11 starts didn’t beat the next best Simona with her 15 starts (note 1 DNS awarded half of last place points) doesn’t seem like a very good argument for while Legge should be given another year. It did get me wondering what were the points per capita to even everything out. Whither you start all 15 races are just 1 everything is equal. For reference the Champion RHR scores 31.2 points per race. The mean points per race for all 35 drivers who started at least 1 race is 19.3 the median is in between Charlie Kimball (18.6 points per race) and Justin Wilson ( 18.5 points per race) Katherine scored 13.7 points per race (30 of 35). Interesting enough her replacement Sebastián Saavedra scored 13.6 points per race in his 3 races. (For further reference Sébastien Bourdais scored 15.7 points per race.)
Lots of thought, many not fit to print but if Katherine had a 2 year contract for ’12 and ’13 with no pertinent kick out clauses Penske and Painter are just wrong and I hope she gets a slew of money AND a pound of flesh. That she is a woman does carry weight with me but is not the defining argument. Wrong is wrong and should be reviled by all of us.
Poor kat… Oh well
She really got hosed last year… Its like saying de silvestro is fully at fault for her performance last year… They both had lotus. Enough said, they both deserve a fresh new start. Kat has every rite to be livid. I would be
“Were I one of the racers being supported by the TRUECar Racing Women Empowered initiative, I’d be a little worried and a lot disappointed at the moment.
The story we’ve been following all week goes like this:”
Not to forget the recent announcement that TrueCar’s most promising upcming single seater racer, Ashley Freiberg, had to go to GT racing for 2013, as apparently TrueCar could not fund her for another season of single seaters.
Pretty sure that the Legge story had very little to do with results themselves. TrueCar is losing lots on money nowadays, so they are trying to scale back their involvement in racing as much as they possibly can. Hence why they took Saavedra in IndyCar, who is said to bring a considerable amount of Colombian money behind him.
Quite frankly it makes sence to support a partly-funded Sebastian Saavedra instead of a moneyless Katherine Legge, you get more results for less money. But of course it’s still a very dirty way to treat Katherine, and it doesn’t go well with their “Woman Empowered” marketing nonsence.
I am way behind. I just read this article now. I had no idea about this. “sincere efforts” ? I believe sincere efforts would include following through this year with Katherine.Very disappointed , I’ve always thought you could trust the name Penske to always have integrity. I guess I was wrong. The opportunity given Kat last year could have not been made successful by any driver on this earth ever.It was a wasted year for anybody that started out with the Lotus debacle. I hate it for racers that are trying to prove themselves under impossible conditions through no fault of their own. I can only hope things somehow turn around for Kat.