The media circus will now have fenders
by Gary Becker
Danica is going racing with cars that come with the fenders still attached. This should be a real media circus.
Now, I’m no fan of Danica Patrick. In my opinion she is a very mediocre driver in a very fast car. She is very fast on tracks that favor a car’s ability over a driver’s ability and a very noticeable back marker on tracks that require driver ability over pure horsepower. However, to be fair, she does do a very good job of following instructions and keeping the car in one piece which appears to be a rare quality in Indy Car Racing.
Danica has done more for the popularity of Indy Car Racing than anyone since Paul Newman walked into a Speedway Motel room to find Joanne Woodward in bed with Robert Wagner in the movie “Winning”. Her girl next door good looks have the talking head media type’s drooling all over themselves and she has turned an average amount of driving talent into a commercial empire.
But the bottom line is, too my knowledge, she has only actually passed cars on the track for position a handful of times. As a matter of fact, according to my alcohol aided count, one time this year. That’s not saying much when you are with one of the top three teams in a series dominated by those three teams and competing against guys whose middle name is “I’m from South America and my daddy’s rich so I’m racing cars instead of actually holding a job.”
Through an uncanny ability of avoiding rich South American drivers bouncing off the walls, following Team Andretti ‘s incredibly successful pit stop for field position strategy and then driving a line that makes it almost impossible to be passed, Danica has been extremely successful in a series where only a few have fast cars and fewer have any talent.
Packing her questionable success in a suitcase and heading south, Danica is now going to strap on a few fenders and go racing with a whole new crowd. Danica is NASCAR Truck Series and Nationwide Series bound for a few exploratory outings.
Danica will quickly find out what Dario Franchitti and his pals have found when making the switch from a series made up of a few quality drivers and a bunch of rich kids from South America to a series made up of a bunch of guys who are scratching their way up the ladder or are scratching even harder to stay on the ladder. Danica will be racing against drivers who keep their rides by results rather than how much advertising money they and their daddy can drum up. There will be drivers trying get their names permanently placed on the sides of rides and drivers trying to keep their names on the sides of rides.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Danica’s rise has been created by “pitting for position” and then turning into the fastest moving chicane in Indy Car racing. It’s one thing to be a moving chicane in an open wheeled car and a totally different animal to be a moving chicane in a car with fenders. Like Indy Car drivers before her, Danica will find out that drivers who are scratching their way up the ladder or are desperately hanging on to that ladder for dear life are not afraid to dent their fenders. That includes the fenders on attractive moving chicanes.
