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Danica Patrick made a splash on the national racecar circuit in 2005 with her impressive showing at the Indianapolis 500. In 2008, she became the first woman to win an Indy race at the Indy Japan 300, and is now an official NASCAR driver. In her spare time, she serves as a model and is a frequent advertising spokesperson. There is, however, talk that she is at best a mediocre driver at a highly competitive level … and that her fame might have more to do with her gender than her, uh, NASCARian prowess.
Fox News Sports recently dished with SPEED.com’s Tom Jensen and Marshall Pruett on Patrick’s work (fair warning, it kind of reads like one of those lists I love to hate). The entire commentary’s kind of interesting and I’d encourage you to check it out, but here are some, uh, highlights.
GRADE PATRICK’s NASCAR SEASON TO DATE.
JENSEN: Incomplete. Like those racy GoDaddy.com ads that hint at a lot and show next to nothing, Patrick’s NASCAR season to date so far has been a frustrating tease. To her credit …
… she has consistently improved as the weekends go on, but she is starting at such a deficit in terms of seat time that’s it hard to evaluate what she ultimately will or won’t deliver. The jury is still out.
PRUETT: F (as in F-ailure to prepare). Has any driver from the world of open-wheel or sportscar racing come to NASCAR more under prepared than Patrick? Her total lack of respect for stock car racing has shown in how little she’s gotten to know the technical aspects of the ARCA and NNS machines she’s driven. She was impressive in her debut, taking a proverbial gun to a knife fight, but since then, her success or failure has been left entirely to her crew chief. Patrick readily admits she knows nothing about the cars, and until she does her homework and can help Tony Eury Jr. to improve the car, she’ll be stuck somewhere between 20th and 30th wherever they go.
Another fair warning—I’m not exactly the world’s biggest racecar fan. I like the word because it’s a palindrome, but other than that, give me some BoSox, Pats, Celts, or Bruins. NASCAR’s pretty big in New Hampshire, so I have to be careful who I say this to, but I guess what it comes down to is that I don’t understand how driving around in circles counts as a sport.
At any rate, both Jensen and Pruett seem to feel that Patrick is unprepared for the level of competition she is now facing. Pruett in particular gives the impression that her crew is busting ass for a driver who’s not much more than a pretty face. Interesting.
GRADE PATRICK’s IZOD INDYCAR SEASON TO DATE.
PRUETT: D (as in “D-isappearing Danica”). Gone is the steady, positive and content driver who finished fifth in the 2009 IZOD IndyCar Series championship – ahead of all her teammates – and took 8 top-6s from 17 races. Whether it was the work of a hypnotist or a prescription for Prozac last year, DP’s demeanor has taken a big step back in 2010, as witnessed by her venomous outburst aimed at her Andretti Autosport team at Indy.
Since then – and we’re only talking about two months – she’s become the black sheep of the Andretti team. Team leader Tony Kanaan refuses to acknowledge her, much less speak to the tantrum-prone starlet. Ryan Hunter-Reay smiles and ignores her. Marco Andretti shrugs and daydreams about swimsuit models. Team owner Michael Andretti, on the other hand, remains thankful for the enormous sponsor checks that Patrick delivers.It’s the Real Housewives of New Jersey-meets-IndyCar racing, but with more in-fighting, hidden agendas, bad manners and lowered expectations.
As long as Patrick refuses to take her meds and remains stuck in her doom and gloom personality, she’ll continue to underwhelm in IndyCar and NASCAR. If she can get back to the “Princess Sparkle Pony” persona (credit SPEED’s Tommy Kendall for that one — best line ever spoken by a Wind Tunnel guest) of ’09, maybe she can start making headlines again for all the right reasons.
This is about where I started to get kind of pissed off. Implying that Patrick has been “gloom and doom” because of the need for an antidepressant or putting her on par with some stupid reality show is hitting kind of low, particularly when you imply that she’ll be making headlines “for all the right reasons” if she goes back to a “Princess Sparkle Pony persona.” Pruett’s entire commentary reeks of misogyny here. If a male driver acted similarly, would there be those sorts of comments thrown around? No, it’d be more like, “Wow, Jim Bob Jones has become kind of an asshole. If he gets some wins, down some beers with the good old boys, all will be copacetic.”
OVERALL, WAS TRYING NASCAR A GOOD IDEA?
JENSEN: Yes. Patrick’s presence in the sport has done a lot of good things. She brought desperately needed sponsorship money to JR Motorsports. She drove sharply higher television ratings, initially. She is a good role model for young women who want to race. All of those are strong plusses.Where I think she’s fallen down is there seems to be a huge disconnect between her own expectations and what she has been able to deliver on the track. She is an intense competitor who at Chicagoland basically said she has no idea of what she’s doing in a stock car. She needs to give herself more time to learn these cars and develop a feel for them. The more she tries to force the issue, the more frustrated she will become. The more frustrated she becomes, the less successful she will be.
Jensen is obviously the good cop here, giving Patrick credit for holding herself to a high standard and letting her off the hook for her lack of tangible success and frustration because she’s inexperienced at driving a stock car. However, he precedes this by pointing out that Patrick’s ultimate value as a racecar driver is essentially a face to bring attention (and fans both female, who want to emulate her, and male, who want to sleep with her) to the sport.
As I said, my NASCAR knowledge is mostly gleaned from my students’ discussions (and my ex-husband’s extended family, who are pretty big fans). However, it seems kind of obvious that Danica Patrick would not be the household name that she is were her name Daniel Patrick. That said, I can’t help feeling like NASCAR set her up a bit. I mean, if someone said to me, “Name five racecar drivers,” she’d be second only to Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (who appears on a lot of t-shirts in my neck of the woods). Incidentally, Ricky Bobby would be third, and he was fictional.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on Danica Patrick?
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She frustrates me. I want to root for her, but she doesn’t seem to win anything ever and she really cashes in on her “hotness” more than anything. I don’t fault her for making money using her looks, but it annoys me that she’s sometimes held up as a feminist when she really doesn’t do anything other than look hot. She’s not the only female racer, either, she’s just the only one anyone cares about. Because she’s hot. And that’s disappointing.
Agreed. I’m not a NASCAR fan, but I see her all the time in stupid ads and it seems as though she just wants to cash in on being a female driver.
As a NASCAR fan, I find her to be a pretty lame driver. It’s obvious by her driving that she doesn’t understand the cars well. INDY is very different from NASCAR, and I think she thought she could jump from open-wheel racing to closed-wheel racing rather quickly. It doesn’t work that way because they’re completely different kinds of cars and completely different kinds of races. In the world of NASCAR, she’s not much more than a pretty face who gets paid a lot by her team owner for just that: her pretty face.
I think she could become a good NASCAR driver, but she’s not there yet.
The New Yorker (Peter J. Boyer, The Sporting Scene, “Changing Lanes,” The New Yorker, May 31, 2010, p. 53 Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/31/100531fa_fact_boyer#ixzz0uFpRpgGw)
recently covered her in one of their essays and pretty much said she is a pretty face and she uses it and that’s why people care. Apparently there are other female drivers who are better than her, both n terms of driving and finishes, but they don’t sell themselves so no one knows about them. And I think these are Nascar drivers too, not just the INDY 500. Although don’t quote me on it.
Pretty much Ms Patrick just frustrates me.
i agree with all yall,.. she drives over her head,.everyone likes her because she is PRETTY,but pretty has nothing to do with driving skills,and apparrently she cant drive a stock car worth crap. she needs to GO back to INDY
Ok, Danika Patrick is one fugly bitch. She is not pretty AT ALL! I’m not into racing or anything like that but my boyfriend is and I constantly have to hear about what a joke she is from him. She pretty much is. She’s not a good driver at all and woo! She won a couple of things. If she was a man and was doing that kind of driving, do you honestly think that he would be getting this much attention?
THANK YOU. I am European and nobody hears about Nascar or Indy over here, but because I read American press I knew about this girl… don’t know whether she is good at driving or not, but she is most definitely NOT pretty. She’s normal, and she might have a hot body, but she doesn’t have a pretty face. Milene Domingues, the most famous football (soccer) female player is actually gorgeous, though.
Of course, this is problably because you are a woman…and i understand. No i sure hope a woman doesn’t think anothyer woman is pretty…this would be a sign of wierdness..however coming from a persapective from a man…i would sell my soul to the devil to be her husband.
She’s an entertainer. Beyonce is not a “good” singer. Neither is Kesha. They market the packaging. Jennifer Aniston is not a “good” actress. Twilight books are not “well written.” It doesn’t matter how good of a driver Danica is, her thing is her sexuality. As long as she’s somewhat competent as a driver and can make the cuts, and has a car owner willing to put her in the seat, who really cares how well prepared she is?
Dude, Beyoncé’s actually a pretty talented singer and dancer. I agree with you on the others, though.
miley is pretty but drity
i do not agree with u cassy she is pretty and u probably arent so think before u wright ttyl bye
Hey kids, this is not a gossip site. It’s a FEMINIST site. Stop talking about whether or not people are “pretty” and trying to put each other down, or go back to Perez.
I’ve noticed that her neck is kind of umm…thick.
She is quite gorgous..i could care less about her driving…wow….yum yum..getting hungry for her body!