In defense of Danica Patrick

(Photo courtesy GoDaddy.com)

There are very few topics in all of motorsports hotter than Danica Patrick. (Interpret that as you wish. But I digress.) Drop her name into any conservation and you are immediately guaranteed a debate that makes anything in Washington sound like two elderly matrons insisting the other go first in reaching for a sugarcube at a tea social. Can she drive. Does she go too far in promoting herself. Could she make it in a different racing league than IRL. And so on.

Patrick has been flirting with the idea of giving NASCAR a try for some time now. That is, if you define flirting as sending mixed signals when all the while she and everyone else knows she's going for it full throttle. Bear in mind the last thing on her mind is coming over for the sole purpose of selling t-shirts while acting as a rolling speed bump for some second-tier team. Patrick wants a ride that can win.

Whether she can win in stock cars is unknown. Very few drivers have succeeded in both open wheel and NASCAR. First on the list is Tony Stewart, and Robby Gordon has also had his moments. However, there are also the recent examples of Dario Franchitti and Patrick Carpentier to consider, and Sam Hornish Jr. still hasn't gotten it right. Other than going right when he's supposed to be turning left.

Danica Patrick's IRL car for 2010.
(Image courtesy GoDaddy.com)

Back to Danica. While she has her supporters, her detractors tend to be the more vocal of the two. With her announcement Monday about re-upping with Andretti Autosport for three years and GoDaddy coming on board as her primary sponsor, the howls have grown even louder, particularly from the NASCAR fandom side of things who apparently feel more than a little jilted after weeks of heavy rumor that Patrick was all but signed on the dotted line with JR Motorsports only to get nothing save IRL talk. The momentary spotting online of a photo with her donning a GoDaddy drivers suit bearing the Nationwide Series and JR Motorsports only added to the furor.

Why?

Being one of those somewhat rare motorsports aficionados who enjoys both NASCAR and IRL -- for the record, even though I'm the NASCAR Examiner I actually like IRL more -- the whole brouhaha over Mrs. Hospenthal's (you know Danica's a married woman, right?) assorted shameless self-promotional activities and the woman herself has oft provided fodder for amusement. First, can she drive. Well gee duh. Is she in the class of a Franchitti or Helio Castroneves in open wheel? Not really. However, on her day she can more than keep up with the big boys. Which this past season wasn't very often due to the fact that if your car wasn't from Penske or Ganassi eleven times out of ten you were making parade laps while the race was ongoing. Hopefully 2010 will find Andretti Autosport, i.e. AA, bringing their A-game as opposed to being a AAA squad going up against major leaguers so the first question in Victory Lane after each race won't be "you again?" to someone in either the Penske or Ganassi stable.

On the NASCAR side, stating that Patrick will be in a JR Motorsports car for a few races next year is a safer call than commenting how ESPN sure does like to talk about Brett Farve. No one needed the brief glimpse of Patrick in the aforementioned Nationwide uniform to genuinely confirm this. The commercials have probably already been made and somewhere in China there's a factory cranking out diecast while the t-shirts are currently sitting in a warehouse somewhere in North Carolina waiting to be shipped. It's a done deal.

So?

Let's set aside the personalities and deal with reality. First off, who owns JR Motorsports? Right, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Rick Hendrick. Dale Jr. has more than enough on his plate dealing with a miserable 2009 season to openly invite a headache no matter how much sponsor money is involved. Hendrick has an aversion to losing. Some fast math adds these factors up to neither doing anything that would be an embarrassment or distraction.

Add to this how both Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick have an eye for talent. Has every pick they've made worked out over the years? No. However, they've also hit a good number of home runs. If they think Patrick can eventually represent herself well in NASCAR, one should be inclined to given them the benefit of the doubt. They know way more about this kind of deal than the rest of us.

Finally, we have Patrick herself. Bit of pride in the young woman's persona. No way is she going to be happy in a scenario where she's doing nothing but making laps and picking up a paycheck from her latest "are you sure they can show that on network television" Super Bowl commercial.

Add it all up and the answer says let it ride. If Danica fails in NASCAR, she fails. How can anyone know that when she has yet to so much as start? What happens, happen. In the meanwhile, start saving for the souvenirs.