It's great that you are thinking about this.
You will want to run as a "Junior Courser". This involves a single dog running at a time, avoiding the possibility of a badly behaved dog that bites.This avoids her having a terrible experience and will give you a good idea of whether she would like it and get her thinking that she needs to chase the lure and not the other dog(s). HINT: If she loves to chase paper bags then she'll be a champ!
After two successful runs -- which gets her a JC title -- you can decide whether to continue. If the lure coursing organization is well run it will likely have her run with another Basenji/dog known for good behavior to make sure she doesn't bite. You need to be careful because, unfortunately, there are people who have dogs that bite who insist on running them sans muzzle and plenty of lure course organizations which don't throw them out.
Another alternative is FastCat which just involves a single dog running down a wide chute. Like lure coursing, this doesn't involve much training. Unlike lure coursing there isn't anything subjective in the evaluation -- it's just time -- but they don't get to wear those cute little jackets. LOL It's also a lot shorter distance.
On the age I'd probably wait until she was a little older but it depends on the dog. It's a bit of an "eye"decision. Certainly by a year she'd be fine. When making this evaluation, if you have a large field available, just watch what she does. If she tears around then she'll be fine because that's more or less what lure coursing is.
You will also need to know how you'll get her back. If the area is fenced then no problem. If it's not you'll want to work on the recall first.
