Danica Patrick: Why She's Good (or Bad) for the Future of Women in Motorsports

Racin' with Russ - When Danica Patrick came onto the racing scene in 2005 in Indy Car competition, she had just come off a full season of Formula Atlantic racing where she claimed one pole and a handful of podium finishes. Yet, no wins had been recorded.

The important situation for the diminutive 5' tall, 100-pound driver was she stood tall on the beauty queen meter, something most past and present female drivers don’t possess.

That made her marketable, despite not having the greatest driving record. Had she been the opposite sex, the doors of opportunity would not have swung open so wide.

In her first Indy 500 appearance, she joined the likes of driver Sarah Fisher, but re-wrote the record books by starting and finishing fourth.

Through the next five years of Indy car racing, she has managed to earn 19 top 5’s, 54 top 10’s, three poles and one lone win with several invisible asterisks attached to her history.

Notes such as her one lone win came on a day in Japan with only 17 drivers starting, a high attrition rate, Helio Castroneves running out of fuel on the final lap and all of the stars and moons were lined up in perfect accord…read…lucky.

The same with two of the pole positions awarded as they were handed to her because of the top drivers being DQ’ed for rules infractions.

When Patrick started racing as a little girl, she did win quite a few go-kart races and some WKA titles. Then proceeded to go across the pond for some European racing, a much-needed procedure to exhibit one’s talent, if it’s there.

Before stepping into the Indy Car ride in 2005, she competed in about 50 races between seven different series, never recording a win or any series titles, but there was that model look for a race car driver.

She was someone who could model in a swimsuit next to her race car and race the car the next day; it just hadn’t been done before and somebody was going to cash in on this windfall and the somebody was Internet site, GoDaddy.com.

The ultra-successful Internet site played this deal up to the hilt with TV, radio, newspaper and Internet advertising their super girl driver Danica.

Then, there was the brilliant idea of moving Danica into the taxi cab set, better known as NASCAR. Well, of course, GoDaddy will splash huge amounts of money around a bright green paint scheme and what better team to hook up with than the ultimate fan favorite, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

They have the resources, experience and wherewithal to put Danica out there and boy did the media and fans love it. Posing with very tiny swimwear for the Sports Illustrated magazine a few times raised the interest bar for every warm-blooded male on the planet. “That’s a race car driver?” they’d ask.

They threw her in an ARCA race first before any Nationwide racing, which was certainly a good idea, but one race does not a racer make, not even Danica.

There she was with some of the best equipment in a mostly inexperienced field of young racers. She finished sixth and everyone was excited to say, “See, she can do it. Look what she did in her first race. Let’s throw her in to the lions, read Nationwide racing for a dozen events.”

The following dozen races saw a media and fan frenzy everywhere she went in and around the pits.

The results? Lackluster at best. The 28-year-old Illinois born driver had been gifted an automatic qualifying spot, started and finished in the high 20s. Not exactly setting the world on fire.

Those behind her will say, “Well, what do you expect, she’s only been in NASCAR for a short while and trying to balance both Indy Car and NASCAR just doesn’t work.”

Then she finished fourth a few weeks ago and her fans said, “See, we told you she could do it.” First of all, that was only one race and she once again was in the right place at the right time with a fuel mileage gamble. Even her crew chief cited their lucky experience. Not an all out, I-beat-the-rest-of-the-drivers-because-I-out-drove-them kind of situation.

So, I still feel she has a lot to learn to be successful among ‘cabbers.’ Do I think a 100-pound driver of any sex can man-handle a 3,400-pound stock car for four hours on a hot sunny day? No.

Is the Anna Kournikova of motor racing good for the sport in general as a role model for young woman looking to get involved in racing? Overall, I would say yes…with hesitation.

For young women looking for a career in racing, unless they have the looks or shape to be a calendar model, they will need to be above the rest in talent to land a sponsor. Danica was in the right place with the right people to put her in a position for huge amounts of backing, whether she had talent or not.

Other up-and-coming drivers such as 22-year-old open wheeler Simona de Silvestro don’t have those beauty queen looks, but this Switzerland born girl is an awesome driver having come off the Formula Atlantic series with three wins, poles and nearly winning the championship. Despite being in only her second year of competition, I see her eclipsing Patrick on the track most of the time, especially the road courses.

Most recently, after starting 17th in Sunday’s IndyCar race on the streets of St. Petersburg, FL, she gave veteran racer Tony Kanaan all he could handle while fighting for third spot on a tricky street road course. Danica had two incidents in the same race and finished 12th out of the 13 cars remaining on track.

Patrick’s strength is on the ovals, which are a lot easier to come to grips with versus a challenging road course which involves up and down shifting, thresh hold braking, strategizing and much more to become competitive. Despite six years on the IndyCar circuit, her best runs remain on the circles.

There are quite a few young ladies trying to break into the Motorsports racing world, mostly from the short track ranks of America. They look at someone like Danica and say, “I can do that,” yet there are a lot of variables to make that happen. Having real talent and a good personality is paramount, but for a woman, having photogenic looks or a magazine quality shape will speed up the marketing process.

This is quite different for the young men, who are concentrating 90 percent on performance results, not what they look like or what shape they are in. I’m not saying that a prospective owner or sponsor doesn’t look at those things as they want the whole marketable package, but it’s a whole lot less important with a man versus a woman.

Let the comments begin.