Danica Patrick was all smiles after finishing sixth in last Saturday's ARCA race - her stock car debut.
It started with an impressive performance in her stock-car debut in last Saturday’s ARCA race. She lingered near the top 10, got spun out and yet managed to keep her car off the wall in what can only be described as a veteran move: She had the wherewithal to take her hands off the wheel while spinning to allow the car to straighten out on its own, then drove from the back of the field to finish sixth.
It continued with her being amongst the fastest drivers in practice for Saturday’s Nationwide race – this against the likes of Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and eight other Sprint Cup regulars.
Critical analysis will point out that she’s doing all this in top-notch equipment, which is true. But the critics can’t ignore the fact that she’s getting out of her car what her car will give her, which isn’t something every driver can say.
“If I spent all my time trying to prove to everybody I could drive a race car, I would be out of energy,” she said. “All I really need to do is keep my team happy, keep my crew chief happy, and keep myself happy – know that I’m pushing a limit.
“Hey, you know, I’m new. Some stuff is going to be tough,” she continued. “I’m not going to come up to speed as quickly. As long as I’m progressing, I think that’s all I can really use as a barometer as to whether I’m getting better or not or I can drive. I can’t really change people’s minds. They have to watch and judge for themselves.”
They will on Saturday, when Patrick takes center stage in a 300-mile Nationwide race in which she’s sure to dominate televised coverage. The ubiquity of Danicamania this week at Daytona International Speedway has gone beyond overkill, so much so that even Thursday’s Duel 150s grand marshal Tim Tebow, an almost godlike figure in these parts, had to take a backseat.
On a normal race weekend, driver after driver is peppered with questions about Junior. In his first Daytona 500 press conference, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh questions Earnhardt fielded were about Danica Patrick.
The focus on Patrick has become so intense that in their prerace meeting, ESPN producers discussed how much is too much. While they proclaim they will maintain a balance in their coverage, how can they? As producer Rich Feinberg said, the only reason he tuned into last Saturday’s ARCA race on SPEED was to see Danica. And what he got was all Danica, all the time.
“It’s our strong belief that there will be people that turn on Saturday’s Nationwide telecast that perhaps don’t watch a lot of Nationwide races, or NASCAR at all, because of the interest in her,” Feinberg said. “We want to serve that curiosity. … It’s a balance thing, but we also view it as an opportunity.”
To be fair, everyone in the media sees an opportunity in Patrick because she’s a gold mine. Viewership for Saturday’s ARCA race was up 87 percent from last year. In comparison, ratings for the Bud Shootout – a virtual Sprint Cup all-star race run later the same night, in primetime on network television – were flat.
“I can’t control how much is out there and what people say, how much they say,” Patrick said. “That’s not my mission, is to be the big story.
“But, you know, on the other hand, if I can do anything to help the series, the other drivers, perhaps drag in some sponsors, I’m happy to do it. I’m happy to do it and I get benefit from that, too. So there’s a lot of reasons why this is a good thing. But I, by no means, am trying to take anything away from anybody else – including the Daytona 500.”
It’s too late for that, especially if she has a strong run in Saturday’s Nationwide race – which, after seeing what’s she’s done so far in a stock car, isn’t the stretch it was less than a week ago.
