What does the racing world think of Danica Patrick?

The Game Room
1

I don’t follow NASCAR particularly closely. I hear the announcers say positive things about her. Are they being honest or just polite?

All I really know about her is usually finishes her races somewhere in the middle of the pack - somewhere between 20th and 30th place. What do the other drivers think of her? And how about the fans?

2

Currently I think she is a respected driver worthy of driving in the Nascar Sprint circuit and other drivers respect her on the track. However, she is a bit over-rated as a driver and that has come to light over the past couple seasons. She’s definately not one of the “top tier” racers that the media was making her out to be.

3

The last thing I remember reading about her (and I mean at all) is some Indy Racing League schmuck whining that she had an unfair advantage because she weighed less than him. Or something.

See, the thing you gotta understand is that a female jock getting a lot of (possibly) undeserved press doesn’t automatically generate a massive firestorm. Generally it requires one of these factors:

  • She hasn’t accomplished anything meaningful (Michelle Wie two or three or four years ago, I forget)
  • She gets so much attention that it ends up completely swallowing up everything else (Anna Kournikova being the archtypical example).
  • She’s obviously in WAY over her head and has no chance of any level of success, yet the media insists on pretending otherwise (Annika Sorenstam’s not-short-enough PGA crossover venture).
  • There’s an absolutely sickening amount of drama involved (Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding, whatever that bug up Venus and Serena Williams’ butts was when they first started getting famous)
  • She did something that made a lot of fans furious, or outraged, or simply bitter (figure there’s a reason we keep hearing about the Battle of the Sexes).

None of this applies to Patrick. She got a win, moved to the big-money league, and is now a consistent middle-of-the-packer. No one’s pretending otherwise. She hasn’t been in a sex scandal, abused drugs, got into a nasty accident off-track, had any embarrassing pictures crop up, swore at a cop, etc. If the announcers are saying generally positive things about her, well, there really isn’t much else to talk about.

4

An ok driver, who won a race in a lower (but prestigious) league and never threatened to approach the pinnacle of racing, that is Formula 1.