Starting in kart racing, she later raced Formula Ford in England before moving back to the US and moving up to IndyCars. Patrick was named the Rookie of the Year for both the 2005 Indianapolis 500 and the 2005 IndyCar Series season. With her win in the 2008 Indy Japan 300, Patrick became the first woman to win an Indy car race. She placed 3rd in the 2009 Indianapolis 500, which was both a personal best for her at the track, and the highest finish by a woman in the event's history. Patrick holds the IRL record for most consecutive races running at the finish. As of October 2, 2011, she has completed 50 consecutive races in the running (the next highest total in the record book is 32) Yeah, sounds like she totally sucked in Indycar
Wow! She really is quite the polarizing character, huh!? "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about......" Would she have got the drive if she were male? Probably not (at least not without big bags of gold). OTOH, she's now been round a while and seems capable of holding her own out there. She's not a Smoke or a Jimmie, but neither are 90% of the other guys. She's has worked hard, both on and off track and IMO deserves the chance. And there's no argument she's a *great* PR boost for 'em - I suspect more eyeballs will be on her this weekend and the TV #'s will be awesome. Good luck to her! Cheers, Ian PS - Are the cars weighed with or without the jockey? [If without, I reckon she saves over 100lb over Smoke! ]
In 2009 she placed 5th in the season championship, beating not only her teammates but ALL drivers not racing for Penske or Ganassi. Yeah, that really sucks. http://www.indycar.com/schedule/standings/55-izod-indycar-series/113-2009-izod-indycar-series/
Last year at Las Vegas in the Nationwide race she finished 4th making it the highest finish ever in NASCAR by a female. On that day Danica and her team beat some of the best in NASCAR. Last year at Daytona she actually drove up through the field and lead some laps. Here's what is most important of all. When the rumors began to fly that Danica might come over to NASCAR the majority in the garage were nonbelievers and didn't give her a chance of making any sort of impact in NASCAR other than a cash cow publicity stunt. Flash forward to today and the feelings have turned 180 degrees. Her fellow drivers have changed their view and now respect her for what she is doing. Even the TV analysts have flip flopped with their opinion. A really good measure as to a driver's abilities is how much respect they receive from their fellow drivers.
Zack It's directly in response to how she markets herself. Her Go Daddy adds and Bikini shots are extremely sexist and misogynistic. That's the point of those adds. Women are objects. It's how she chooses to portray herself. That's the point I'm making. I truly believe she's a terrible role model for women and is very clearly saying "Look at my Tits not at my driving". Best Image Unavailable, Please Login
Am not a great fan of her, but that was an unfortunate accident. Looking at it over and over I dont believe if anyone else was in that "space" at that time the outcome would of differed in anyway. Let me know if I am wrong. The only thing I saw was that is that she was being aggresive and thats what racing is about, although you got to pick and choose when.
Lets not forget she qualified for the 2012 Daytona 500 and Kenny Wallace did not yet SPEEDTV felt it was worth their resources to make an entire show about his efforts? Marketing is marketing and I find your view rather narrow minded, your whole basis is a sexist point of view imho. She has earned here right to be there regardless of gender or what you percieve as simply just marketing.
Not fair comparison because Danica's team had the point to guarantee the spot however.... Danica is on the provisional pole for the Nationwide race with 14 cars left to qualify and she did it by besting Sam Hornish's time by A LOT
correct and the story on kenny was to help with a human interest approach. did not hurt that he is also a speed tv employee either. pcb
guys i have said it many times before and including in this thread. this is a super speedway and she has a fast, fast hot rod make no mistake. she will show better on 1.5 mile and larger venues. on the short tracks, she will be memorable but just not for her fast pace. pcb
gregg, my point is supportive of yours...she will be more of a concern on the fast stuff but much less so on the drivers tracks. pcb
She's scheduled to race at Darlington and Bristol for the first time so the learning curve will be steep for sure. One left to beat for the pole for tomorrow's race.
Danica gets the pole for the Nationwide race. If you want to tell me that Stewart lifted so Danica could get it, I won't fight it
but make no mistake, her only chance of winning would occur if the france family wills it. her old driving coach came to my house last year to shoot the ***** with my brother and me last summer. when i asked about his pet project he laughed and roilled his eyes. jb did not need to say anything else. i got the message. pcb
There are a lot of men that have got into similar positions with little talent, thanks to rich sponsors, etc. Apparently she was 2008 (?) rockie of the year, so she cannot be any more useless than the MANY just average male racing drivers out there that are not there because of talent. At least half the Australian V8 Supercar drivers have no great talent so I'm sure it's the same in NASCAR ... and heck half the F1 drivers appear to not really be up to the grade too, but then that grade is somewhat higher. Pete ps: was she punted into a spin as from the video it looks like she just lost it ... thus I would have expected more attempting to save the situation ... ?
she was punted. two ways to look at it... 1) victim of a bad move by the other driver 2) danica error...had her nose where it did not belong
Almost They've been known to throw a yellow for debris that nobody can find just to tighten up the field. When Stewart was doing his qualifying run he had her well beat and then suddenly lost it going through turns 3 and 4 as you watch on the tracker. Big drop in speed. My guess is he burped the throttle just enough. It would be real interesting to have audio to see if that happened and to hear the conversation with his crew if any, to see if there was something said to let him know to back off.
That pic is Pchoped. She has no tits. Lucky to weigh a 100#. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
