As the Danica Patrick bandwagon steams toward the Daytona Nationwide Series race next weekend, don’t worry about saving me a seat just yet. Finishing sixth in her first ever stock car event is commendable, but I think it’s a bit early to crown her the next big thing.
In case you missed it, Patrick recovered from a late race spin through the tri-oval grass at Daytona to finish sixth in her debut race in the ARCA Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200. She kept her nose clean, didn’t give up, and brought home a car with all the fenders still on it. Which in itself is quite an achievement in the ARCA Series. But lets try and remember what she was up against.
Stop by Jayski’s story links page for February 7th and you will find no less then 15 articles about Danica’s debut. Most of which contain quite a bit of praise for the 27 year old driver, some of which she deserves, and some she doesn’t.
Danica took on the ARCA Series at Daytona in an ARCA car powered by Hendrick and put together by JR Motorsports. She had a veteran crew chief on the box (Tony Eury Jr.) and had a combination of JR Motorsports Nationwide Series guys and Hendrick Motorsports Cup guys working on and pitting her race car. Not a bad way to start off a stock car career.
And not to knock the ARCA Series, as it’s a great place to gain valuable experience on bigger tracks, but this is the same series that David Stremme once won a race at Michigan by lapping the entire field once, and up to ninth place twice.
So before we crown her and heap a ton of ridiculous expectations on her, let’s allow her to run a few races and gain some experience against some tougher competition. I think it’s only fair.
And just as a side note, I know there is a certain motorsports writer (ahem Jeff Gluck) who, before the season started, posed an interesting question and bet to his readers and Twitter followers. He wanted to know who would outperform the other this season, John Wes Townley or Danica Patrick. Give round one to Townley, who followed up a fourth place run in last year’s ARCA opener with a third place run this year.
Related posts:
- Everyone Wants Danica!
- Danica Taking Safe Path To NASCAR
- How To Scare Away Sponsors; and Danica Patrick
- Hey Team Danica, Get With It
- Who’s To Blame For The Plight of JR Motorsports’ Other Driver?
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on Feb 7th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Bingo.
Enough with Mrs.Hospenthal.
Move along, nothing more to see here – but plenty of other drivers to see and talk about over there…
on Feb 7th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
When Joey Logano won everyone said well it’s only ARCA. Danica finishes 6th in a JRM modified Nationwide ride and it’s the second coming. Go figure.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 4:08 am
Danica Patrick doesn’t deserve 100% praise. What she does deserve is to not be made fun of or mocked at this point. If you read Twitter during the ARCA race it was pathetic at points. Obviously, the female Superstar from Indycar racing in her first stock car race is a very big deal. The number of viewers had to have increased dramatically. There were reporters insulting her, reporters doing their job and being chewed out for tweeting any Danica update and there were drivers mocking Danica to each other via Twitter. One reporter posted a ‘You Tube’ cartoon video of the Danica coverage.
One (ahem) reporter has announced that Danica is ‘selfish’ because she took Kelly Bires ride at Daytona. I read that it’s a sponsor decision plus Kelly wasn’t going to be able to run the entire season anyway.
Do the people within Nascar realize that Danica in Nascar is probably a win for them? There will be more exposure (including the non-traditional Nascar fans), more viewers, ticket sells, etc. Currently reporters, teams, drivers are losing their jobs. How can reporters be so blind as to ‘egg on the haters’?
Maybe Nascar should hire a Pro Golfer to come in and talk to the people involved with Nascar. They could tell them how they were skeptical of Tiger initially but quickly learned the purse size and their individual exposure and wealth increased dramatically.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Danica ran just like I thought she would. Not great, not bad, well that = average. She’s an average IRL driver and I don’t expect any different from her stock car driving. There were some who made fun of her solution to catch the car when she spun, but letting go of the wheel was actually the right thing to do. If in the long run she’s better at NASCAR then great. If she mostly sucks, well at least she tried. And brought a bunch of attention with her.
As for Kelly Bires, I understand about the sponsor and business thing, but from a pure race standpoint, dumping him out for the part timer and all but ending his season & championship chances before it could even begin is a terribly raw deal. Hope to see some kind of 11:59th hr deal to put him in the #5 for Daytona.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Of course Danica has the best equipment and great personnel, but NASCAR can not afford to have it any other way. She is the ticket to their re-emergence of popularity. You have to be proud of her for being able to keep up and really race these much more experienced people. YOU ROCK GIRL!!!
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Personally I thought she did a good job for the first time out in a different series. But 1 race does not make a great driver or champion. She MIGHT even do good in ARCA, OR Nationwide, OR Cup. But all we saw was 1 race, with top line equipment and people, racing against a bunch of people running on a shoestring budget.
I thought she did a great job saving it (on the spin), I don’t think it was all luck. All the top of the line equipment and people in the world are not going to help when you are spun out into the grass. At that point it is your skill, instinct, and some luck.
As for now, I’m taking a wait and see approach.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
I’d say Ric’s comments and others pretty well summed it up. When DP gets to a track where car set-up, feed back and more than just flat out is req’d, it will be interesting to see. For a while there I saw shades of her 1st Indy run and Japan win. Spin or miss a shift, pit for new rubber and fuel, join the back of the pack out of sequence and have plenty of fresh goods to outlast those at the front.
That leads me to wonder in Sat nights Bud Shootout why at least one of cars in the back of the pack did not green flag pit for fresh rubber within ~10 to go. One could almost guarantee a caution before the end and a wiley fox could of leap frogged to the front when most everyone else (less Kahne & Biff) pitted under the inevitable yellow. Common guys, think outside the box and employ a little road course pit out of sequence strategy. After all, the Shootout spoils only really go to the one winner. TC feel free to pass this along to your crew chief at no charge.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Danica does not care what you say about her, as long as you spell her name correctly. I am sure she is delighting in all the trash talk smiling all the way to the bank.
As the weakass “stop and parkers” will tell you, you do not have to win to make a lot of money in Nascar.
I think Dancia has done plenty to earn our respect. She has taken plenty of crap her whole career and she is still at it, none of the BS talk has stopped her.
I started out disgusted at her, but I have watched and she has kept on kepping on …and she has more fire than most drivers. She does not take crap off of anyone, and she looks sexy and hot in a bikini, and she is not afriad to flaunt it ….. YUMMY : )
Danica is good for NASCAR. I pity anyone who underestimates her and/or gets on her bad side,,,cuz “Hell hath no fury” ….. take that to the bank.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
What I have liked about Patrick is how she has tried very hard to lower expectations. If we let her set her own goals, they’re pretty modest, and she’s met them so far, even though it’s only one race. She handled all the hype wonderfully, and performed more than competently on the track. No one should have asked for more than that.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Zieke: If you really believe that Danica is NASCAR’s “ticket to their re-emergence of popularity”, you need to do your research. She was supposed to be the IRL’s golden ticket, too. It might have worked had she proven to be more than a hot chick who knows how not to wreck a fast car but she’s not. As long as people keep buying into ideas like yours, she’ll keep getting away with being a name and a story without ever really being a racer.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
After watching her post-race interview, she better learn the sponsor talk really fast or she’s going to be in the hauler for not mentioning her sponsors. Plus it probably would help if she thanked the pit crew and crew chief for the job they did.
We’ve had 2 years of hype now let’s see if she can deliver like the hype has promised us.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
She stayed in line until she had to go to the back of the already depleted pack. Her top 10 finish was pretty good because I don’t think she has a handle on this type of car yet. She can drive but she aint racing. I’m sure her handlers will have her just making laps next Saturday. She will probably end up about 3 laps down depending on the cautions. In Nationwide she will be way out of her league.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Am I the only one one that saw Allie Owens and the great job she did? What about the female doc, sorry she didn’t get enough air time for me to get the name down.Erase the yellow lines and what would she have done? It was a good first time effort at best. The second coming she isn’t. Let’s offer the same ride, the same effort to other female racers and look at it then, just to be fair. Also look at her years of experience, 10 plus years if you count her European racing. Good but a long way to go!
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
My jury’s still out on this, too.
Let’s see where she finishes (barring no wreck) Sat to see if her ARCA finish was a fluke or not.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
So far I believe the most anyone can say is that she is a definite maybe. I hope she does well – since it might attract more sponsor dollars and attendance, which could result in more opportunities for others and more jobs.
on Feb 9th, 2010 at 9:11 am
@The Mad Man:
“After watching her post-race interview, she better learn the sponsor talk really fast or she’s going to be in the hauler for not mentioning her sponsors.”
I noticed that too. I figured it was just a matter of “I’m Danica Patrick, you should already know who my sponsor is. Let’s talk about me.” At least that’s the way it came across to me as I was watching it. I’m glad they interviewed Bobby Gerhart first though.
on Feb 9th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Danica’s after race interview raised my eyebrow more than once. It didn’t sound anything like I was use to hearing from the other drivers. Thought about it more later. Aren’t people complaining about how the drivers are sounding like robots during the interviews, saying all the right things. Danica’s NOT, so that should make those fans happy. Go Daddy will be happy no matter what she does and says because it’s all PR for them.
on Feb 9th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Carrie.
I believe that Danica provides the opportunity for NASCAR to re-emerge simply because of her possible large drawing power to races and TV ratings, if she does well in what is mainly men’s domain. As for research, just look at TV ratings and track ticket sales to determine whether new blood and or new rules are needed to achieve these objectives. Danica, whether deservedly or not, can fit into this criteria.
on Feb 9th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Zieke, I’m kind of on board with you. I probably would have watched the ARCA race & Busch race at Daytona regardless of Danica, but I must admit, I am & will be watching with more interest. Actually paying attention to the race rather than having it on in the background or flipping back & forth to other stuff. As I’ve said before, I can’t stand plate races, but this is speed weeks. Of course I have to watch all the racing or at least have it on while I’m napping.
I will be watching Danica closely but success on a plate track doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. Mikey Waltrip case in point. Let’s see Danica at Martinsville!!! Too bad the Busch cars won’t be going there. I wonder if Darlington is on her schedule?
on Feb 9th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Sam Hornish started on the pole and finished 2nd in his first ARCA race he ran before going full time into Sprint Cup. Read into that however you choose.