Sunday, February 7, 2010

Danica Shows Off In Stock Car Debut

Danica Patrick made her stock car debut yesterday, in the ARCA series race at Daytona. Though not NASCAR exactly (ARCA is two steps down from Sprint Cup racing), it was her first competitive race in a full bodied, NASCAR style stock car. The car was No. 7, sponsored by Go Daddy, and was fielded by JR Motorsports (Dale Jr.'s Nationwide race team).

Danica held her own throughout the race, was competitive, and surprisingly calm. Midway through the race she was bumped, spun, and knocked off the track by a no-talent rookie (who also caused two other accidents in the race). She displayed superior car handling skills to keep the car from hitting the wall, a fact that was fawned over by the broadcast team. Instead of blowing up, she got back at it, climbing up to as high as 5th, before settling for 6th at the finish. She had a chance in the last few laps to get to the front.



I admit to believing she would not be successful in stock cars. However, after watching her getting rubbed from behind, from the side, and in the front all day long (insert your own joke here) then overcoming a spin and finishing in sixth ... I might just have to change my mind.


Images courtesy SpeedTV and GoDaddy.com

Update 2/8 - Following her success on Saturday, Danica announced today that she will run the Nationwide race at Daytona this coming Saturday. Her Nationwide debut had been scheduled for the week after at California, but she and her team added Daytona to her schedule. We'll see how well she does - the Nationwide cars handle much differently than ARCA cars, there are more of them on track, and the racers in that series are a bit more 'aggressive'.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't know when you boys are going to get the point. Girls CAN do anything, but most of the time we simply choose to not compete with our boys. It tends to make them crabby at naptime. ;)