Danica Patrick: Can She Compete with the Big Boys of NASCAR?

Racin' with Russ—No, no and no. In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "let me count the ways."

Even some of the best open-wheelers are struggling to come to grips with the many nuisances with wheeling a 3,400-pound stock car. Juan Montoya is the prime example of leaving the open wheel ranks of F-1 and Indy car, and after six years, he’s racked up just two wins in Cup and one in Nationwide…that’s it. And all of those were road course trophies, no oval awards.

Now this guy is a world champion, Indy 500 winner, many time winner in most anything he sits in…and the man is flat out struggling to be a consistent top-10 runner.

Look at other world talents such as Dario Franchitti, Jacques Villenueve and Sam Hornish, Jr., among others. All winners and champions, and all have done miserable to the point of bailing out of the series.

Danica is nowhere near the talent of Montoya or others before her, and she thinks with time, she’ll be competitive? She’s won how many open wheel races, including race action prior to Indy Car competition???? One….on luck out in Japan. I say she’s not ready and won’t be ready for many years...if ever!

Overall size, age and shape...Danica is 5’0” tall, weighing in at tuna fish size 105 pounds and will be 30 years old in 2012. Has there ever been a male or female with those stats in the winner’s circle of a Cup, Truck or Nationwide race? No.

I don’t see someone, male or female, being able to withstand the rigors of a hot day or night, like the Coca-Cola 600 wheeling one of the taxi-cabs for 4-5 hours and be able to get ‘up on the wheel’ in the closing stages in a duel to the finish.

I have watched a lot of in-car camera footage of Danica and I have rarely seen her ‘send that puppy in there’ to out brake someone in a road course situation. Her road course prowess leaves much to be desired, and as we know, both Nationwide and Cup have several left and right events that Danica would struggle mightily in.

Patrick tends to hog the middle of the track, whether it’s stock cars or open-wheelers, something that has aggravated both series competitors when trying to pass the GoDaddy driver. I’m not asking her to pull over, but just pick a side of the track and go with it. It is very frustrating to other drivers trying to guess which side of the track she’s looking for.

I see it as a very unsure and defensive move on her part. The ‘boys’ of Cup will not put up with that kind of nonsense.

Danica is used to 15 or so races a year with the Indy Car circuit. Moving into a series with very few breaks and a 36-race date schedule, not including pre-season and off-week testing, it is a grueling schedule. Not like the Sprint cars, where they compete in more than 80 races a year, but the Cup schedule compared to the Indy is quite different. Can she deal with it?

Did I mention all of the sponsor commitments?

What about the somewhat normal beating and banging that occurs among "the boys"? Can she deal with the likes of being stuffed in the fence from guys like Kyle Busch, Robby Gordon or Kevin Harvick? I think not. And if she does one of her little stomping down pit lane to talk to a driver bits…that won’t fly.

Unless she’s handed on a silver platter starting spots for Cup races, like she was in Nationwide, I see her having a tough time just to qualify on her own merits.

Her initial foray into Nationwide competition saw her start deep in the pack and finish deep, from high 20s to mid 30s. Yes, she got a fourth this year, with yet again a fuel strategy luck out. In my book, it was a gift. Why, even her own crew chief said they were lucky.

For those Manica fans out there…don’t write me and say how much I must hate the girl. I have met her and found her to be pretty, friendly, confident and generally a nice person. I just don’t think she has the track record or the fortitude to be competitive among the Cup boys.

I’ve counted the ways. What do you think? Drop us a line.