Lots of Champ Car/IndyCar races have been won on fuel strategy, so to put an asterisk next to this particular victory isn’t fair. That being said, she has a long way to go on general racecraft. She can qualify well, but tends to fall back during the race and seems to have trouble with pack racing (which is an unfortunate fact of life thanks to the current IndyCar formula). On this particular occasion, she was in the perfect position to bubble up to the front of the pack as the fuel strategy went her way.
I thought the reason men usually win these races is that they don’t stop to ask for directions.
I said she’s top five- currently that’s about how many good drivers there are in this series. I have nothing against her, not knocking her, don’t care if she wins the next 10 or never wins again, its just that a victory due to cautions and all of the race falling as such that those ahead of her had to pit right before the race ended is sort of a hollow victory, no matter who the particular race winner was. Yes a win is a win, no one will care or remember how this race ended in two months, I just feel a race were she outduels someone will be a better testament to her skill, should that day ever come.
I don’t buy the “fuel strategy” thing. For example, I routinely make the same 500 mile trip a few times a year- sometimes I get there on one tank of gas, sometimes I don’t- do the times I make it without needing to add gas mean I drove “more skillfully” that time, or does it simply mean there were fewer accidents, construction slowdowns, etc.?
Isn’t she the top driver for an established team with their best car? An average of 17 drivers a race, 12 of which are lesser knowns, that should put her in position to win every week, I feel if she’s a really good driver the wins should start to come more frequently, and if they do, good for her.
Heyy-oooo!
Victories by men in races with crashes and delays ,still appear in their win column. She won. She was a good enough driver to take advantage of the fuel problem. She finished ahead of a lot of male drivers. They also had gas in their race cars.
Heh. 
Sigh…great for her, but remember, the IRL is a rinky-dink ego trip organization created due to a bizarre split that, to this day, no one has even ATTEMPTED to pony up a logical explanation for. Now that the biggest storyline has closed, is there any reason to watch this league anymore?
Oh, sure, the diehards and cranks will dredge up all kinds of qualifiers. Just fuel strategy, not a “real” win, whatever the frag that is. Needs to win consistently for…I don’t know the hell what, but something. Unimpressive. Ultimately, though, such arguments aren’t going to gain any traction, as nobody else really cares one little bit.
Yeah, she won. Guess what: life goes on. As does the IRL, against all odds.
The difference is that hundreds of millions of people know and care who wins the Oscar. Practically nobody cares about Indy car racing. My guess is, 95% of the population couldn’t name you a single active Indy car racer besides Danica.
But for those who are fans, yes, a win is a win. She’s one of the elite in her game. It’s just her misfortune to come along when almost nobody cares about the game.
On the other hand, if she jumped to NASCAR (no idea if she’d be good, I’m just talking show biz), she’d be a genuine media superstar, at least for a little while.
Is there any doubt that this would be a bad idea for Danica right now? Look at the other drivers who have made the jump to NASCAR from open-wheel racing… Only Juan Pablo Montoya has had any measure of success, and he looks at times like a glorified Boris Said, a road-course ringer who happens to have a full-time ride.
Well 1997 IRL Champ Tony Stewart, hasn’t done too bad for himself with NASCAR Winston and Nextel Cup Championships in 2002 and 2005, respectively.
Going to NASCAR would be the biggest sports blunder ever. Look at Montoya and Franchitti, two drivers clearly her superior head to head, and both are NASCAR also rans, except for Montoya on road courses.
And look what happened to Franchitti… totally different driving skills.
I don’t believe Danica’s going anywhere until she wins the Indy 500. After that… sure, all bets are off. Any circuit should be happy to have her because Danica spells dollar signs.
I dunno, but she is currently ranked third in IRL points standings.
I’ve been puzzling over this one since you posted it. I don’t quite follow the logic.
Previous to this season, IRL only weighed the cars. People bitched because of a simple law of physics: a lighter car goes faster. So this season, IRL started weighing the cars with the drivers in them. Because Danica is smaller than most of the other drivers, Andretti-Green has to add weight to her car. This levels the playing field so the car weighs the same as all the other cars + drivers.
So if they weigh the car without Danica, she has an unfair advantage. If they weigh the car with Danica, so that she and her car weigh the same as the other cars + drivers, she still has an unfair advantage? 
Is there anything this woman could do so that, when she wins, her naysayers will just accept it as a legitimate win?
What am I missing?
They developed a HANS device for her labia, so they wouldn’t flap outwards at speed like a parachute, thereby reducing her drag.
I am kidding. Good for her. Now win some more.
No, he was just pointing out that there is still a small advantage in being able to place the weight where you want. This is true in all racing, not just IRL.
Some would argue that there is no such thing as objective fairness; the only fairness that exists is made up by man. Arbitrary, if you will. For those who believe that, there are two choices: either there is no such thing as fairness, or fairness is defined by expert opinion. Others would argue that there is indeed such a thing as objective fairness, and that it is easily identifiable using common sense. As plain as the nose on your face, as it were.
Regardless of whether fairness is arbitrary or objective, in the case of racing, weighing the cars sets the precedent that weight advantages are unfair. As such, not weighing the drivers by definition introduces an unfair advantage. Those who don’t believe in fairness at all might argue that it isn’t unfair until they’re blue in the face, but not believing in fairness is so contrary to the human condition that they can safely be ignored. Plus, the disingenuousness of arguing against the details of something you don’t believe in in the first place makes them douchebags anyway.
Competitions like boxing or wrestling address unfair weight advantages with weight classes. The standard in racing – including all major auto racing and even horse racing – is to add ballast to normalize for driver weight. This is a much more reasonable solution than splitting IRL into weight classes.
While it’s true that there are handling advantages in being able to place the ballast wherever you like, that isn’t an unfair advantage at all. The common sense reason is that the unfair advantage was in the law of physics that explains why car lighter = go faster, which is negated by the ballast. The “arbitrary fairness” explanation is that all the experts agree that it isn’t unfair.
Nobody is saying that Danica has an unfair advantage. The poster in question was merely bringing up nitpicky details. This is well within the tradition of the SDMB.
It’s an advantage because of the reason Ellis Dee explained. A small, “nitpicky” one perhaps, but with almost everything else on the cars being identical as IRL rules require, a useful one all the same.
Nobody said it was “unfair”, though, unless they also criticized Mark Martin for having the same advantage in NASCAR.
I was led to believe that there are vast technological differences on all the cars – or at least teams – in IRL. Is that not the case?
When one runs out of argument, name calling is what’s left I guess. And running off to do it in a different thread…nice. Well, that and misrepresenting the opposition argument. There was nothing unfair about her advantage.
I’m not running off to do anything in a different thread. I gave up trying to talk sense to you in the other one, since you seem impervious to it.
But since you are apparently stalking me, please explain exactly why it’s fair to weigh the cars but then allow some drivers to drive lighter cars. If you are so confident in your position, surely it won’t be difficult to articulate beyond bleeting out “it’s not unfair!”