I've been a critic of hers as well as the media's for their coverage of her, now I'm ready to put it to rest- Danica Patrick is officially worthy of press and motor racing respect. She has now won a race.The event begs the question- if a race is run half a world away, does anyone really care? Usually not, but it was different this weekend.
It's truly a shame that this historic event happened in Japan while most Indy Car fans were sleeping, but it's still a big deal. I don't think it deserves an asterisk despite the Champ Car scheduling conflict- she beat the best oval racers in the world to earn a trophy eerily similar to the Borg Warner. Her pit crew and team did their job- they made tough decisions to put her in the position to win...and she brought the victory home.
What a great season it's been for Indy Car...and now, as we head into the month of May with the greatest race in the world coming up quickly, the timing couldn't be better. Danica finished second a few years back and earned some respect from fans at Indy...It'd be great for the sport to see her contend yet again at the brickyard. I would also like to see Rahal, Power and Co. get up to speed on the big oval for the strength of the field and the series. We shall see as practice commences on 16th street on the West side of Indianapolis in a short while.
Let's go racing.
11 comments:
It doesn't count because it wasn't in the U.S. She still sucks and she is still a crybaby.
Here here!!
Here's the top-5:
1. Patrick
2. Castroneves
3. Dixon
4. Weldon
5. Kanaan
Beating those five is pretty amazing and a pretty big feat. All have had success in Indy Car and elsewhere. That win is very legit.
She's still a colossal whiner, but it was awfully nice to see her end a race speechless.
I would take her whining over Eric Gordan's any day.
Considering she actually competes against men and holds her own, I think this is pretty impressive. How many other sports have women tried to compete with the men and failed terribly?
Golf for one...
I must say with great regret that I watched my last (U.S. based, anyways) open wheel race Sunday afternoon-- the Champ Car Grand Prix of Long Beach. Years at Purdue taught this East Coast boy the greatness of Indycar racing, and I followed it religiously ever since. Tony George's selfish, meglomaniacal maneuver to take his bat and ball home to IMS and create the IRL in 1996 spoiled my enjoyment to a large degree, but I chose to follow CART/Champ Car, and went to my fair share of races over the years. No more. That man ruined open wheel racing in North America, indirectly gave rise to NASCAR, and went against his stated mission objectives from the start [does anybody else remember him complaining about how American short track drivers are being ignored by CART? And how the IRL was going to bring all that USAC oval track talent into the spotlight? Jeez Tony, how many Americans are in the IRL now? How many World of Outlaws vets are currently driving for Penske, Gannassi, etc?]. I simply can't do it on principle alone, not to mention the inferior chassis and slower speeds of IRL cars.
My hometown of Portland hosted 24 straight years of CART/Champcar. Not this year, and future races look extremely doubtful. One man's loathsome meddling has forever weakened this great sport. I'm devoting my auto racing attention to Sports Car (American Le Mans, the support race for Champcar today, a great race in its own right) from now on. And if the IRL does come back to my town? I wont be attending, plain and simple.
Congratulations to Danica and Will Powers, this weekend's open wheel winners, fine drivers both. Good luck to you IRL, and farewell.
Gregg Z.
Purdue '89
Hutchens = Gold mine
http://blogs.indystar.com/hoosiersinsider/archives/2008/04/bigtime_recruit.html
Greg, I agree with much of what you said. George is a huge egotist that brought open wheel racing to its knees. But, to jump ship now makes little sense. The deepest pool of talent in over ten years is now together and the will soon show that much like in capitalism, the best product will win. The personalities are already being developed...And in 10 years, I believe these guys will become the Fittipaldis, Andrettis and Mears of the 2010s.
All that said, I understand your premise I just think you're leaving at the wrong time. The technology will come up as sponsorship dollars grow, and they will...I'm sure of that.
I never liked Champ Car. The different grades of tires and the power boost shots made it more like a video game and extremely silly. The cars, like F1 though were made for road courses and were lightning quick...I just find most road course races nearly unwatchable. The American Le Mans series seems better suited for the road races as the cars suspensions can handle a bit of contact through the tight courses...and the drivers, while many are past their prime are very good. I've enjoyed watching some of those this spring.
F1 is a tough brand of racing to watch, for me...I hope Hamilton makes his way over to American Le Mans or Indy Car as I think he's very talented...but there's simply not enough passing in those races to keep my attention.
Thanks for stopping by and posting your opinion...I just think you're leaving when it's about to get good.
Is it Sideboob Monday because there is a picture of a chick and a car? I dont get it, is this a movie review of the upcoming Speed Racer movie?
Boilerdowd:
Thanks for your well-reasoned response. Graham Rahal is a star in the making, and Marco Andretti will probably surpass even his grandfather Mario in achievements after all is said and done... but again, principles are principles. Perhaps if TG handled the merger better with regards to even the equipment (it was pretty much acknowledged Champ Car's Panoz chassis are superior to the aging IRL Dallaras) and giving more assistance to the smaller Champ teams who wanted to make the switch but couldn't swing it financially, perhaps things would be different.
Yes, Push-to-Pass turbo boost and special tires struck me as gimmicky at first, but seeing as Champ became essentially a spec series (Panoz-Cosworth-Bridgestone), this allowed for a fun X-factor and divergent team strategies. Maybe you wanted to put the stickier tires on after a caution period or taking a lighter fuel load to put some distance between you and the field-- there were a lot of ways it could play out. I believe it was Marty Reid (?) who mentioned on the Long Beach broadcast that he'd like to see the push-to-pass feature on the IRL cars (which, like Champ, are spec racecars). This isn't to say that Champ Car was great and the IRL sucked-- Bourdais was a singular talent to be sure, but he wouldn't have had that gaudy winning percentage if he were faced with a Penske or Ganassi team in similar equipment. I'm a road and street course guy, so I gravitated to Champ, plus I've mentioned my feelings about Tony George.
Sports car series like American Le Mans are really the last bastion of innovation and unlimited budgets-- open wheel racing in North America is a spec series for now, and even F1 is moving to reign in costs. I was drawn to racing because of the cutting edge technology that will eventually trickle down to average road cars. What Audi (and Peugeot on the European circuit) are doing with diesel technology is nothing short of astonishing, and this sort of thing will be coming to road cars sooner than later. I will concede that Sports car drivers are largely guys past their prime, but there are some up-and-comers as well, plus the guest drivers like Dale Jr., A.J. Allmendinger and Marco Andretti come over and keep things interesting.
But... back to Purdue sports. Seems like a lot of upperclassmen playing this year. You don't think Tiller chose this as his last year because he sees another rebuilding job ahead??
Cheers,
Gregg Z.
The IU Star is at it again. There is an article today by Hutchens about the Nick Williams committment. Not only did they inflate his offer list, but also said he was the top prep player in Bama. Per Rivals, he would be behind 4 other guys. I need to let it go, but its so hard.
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