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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
HEMBREE: A Long, Hard Road For Patrick
There have been plenty of women besides Danica Patrick who have tried their hand at NASCAR...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted February 05, 2010   Daytona Beach, FL
Danica Patrick made debut in stock car racing at Daytona International Speedway Saturday finishing sixth. (Photo: Getty Images)
The impression that might follow the brouhaha over Danica Patrick’s working visit to Daytona International Speedway this week is that she is breaking the exhaust ceiling for women in stock car racing. One might think she is the first to get grease under her fingernails (figuratively, of course).

But there have been others – quite a few others, in fact. Forty women have made starts in NASCAR races over the years. The first, Sara Christian, started the first race in 1949, and she might have been the best of the group of women who have challenged the male domination of stock car racing since the beginning.

None has won, and therein rests the major challenge to be addressed. Only two – Janet Guthrie and Christian – have scored top-10 finishes in what is now the Sprint Cup Series. In the second- and third-level Nationwide and Camping World Truck series, no woman has finished in the top five.

Now arrives Patrick, a tiny but vibrant package of fire, wrapped in sponsor finery and made up for the cameras (this is something Richard Petty never did). Despite a mediocre record in IndyCar racing in mid-level equipment (one win, and that one a fuel-mileage finish), there is the thought in some circles that she has a better chance at success in stock car racing than any of her predecessors.

She certainly has the most hype. Having raced several times in the Indianapolis 500 and threatened to win, and having appeared in some provocative television commercials (more coming Sunday during the Super Bowl) and in some on-the-edge pictorials in magazines, she is much more than a female race car driver. She is DANICA.

She is a phenomenon, a movement. She is either a celebrity racer or a racing celebrity.

She brings with her big-time sponsor money and big-time expectations. If she succeeds, it will be a remarkable story – really, the first story about a woman wrestling stock car racing to the ground and conquering it. If she fails, she will fail in front of a massive audience, and the thud will be heard for miles.

Can she make it work?

We begin to find out Saturday. Despite the massive media attention, the measure of Patrick’s potential depth as a stock car racer can not be taken after one race. She has much to do, much to learn, many miles to travel.

Racing in Saturday’s Automobile Racing Club of America opener is a good start. Many other NASCAR wannabees have taken their baby steps in ARCA, particularly in races at Daytona. It provides something of a map toward future performance, although a driver here typically is only as good as his or her car.

Patrick, driving for JR Motorsports, should have a good one, potentially one capable of winning. She’ll be smart, however, to resist such goals and simply try to finish the race in the top 15, learn more about drafting, figure out the intricacies of pit road and begin the process of grasping the sometimes weird geometries of stock car racing.

It will take patience and persistence, and more than a handful of observers will offer the opinion that she can’t successfully cross the bridge to stock cars while also trying to keep both feet in the IndyCar series, where she plans another full-time run. If she fails (and we won’t know the answer to that question for many months), that might be the No. 1 reason.

If she succeeds, there will be many more questions – like, for example, “Where do you want us to park the money truck, Ma’am?”

Watch Live & Exclusive Coverage of Daytona Speedweeks on SPEED™!


 Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of Americas Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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