HEMBREE: Danica’s Moment

Sprint Cup

HEMBREE: Danica’s Moment – How Long?

Danica Patrick’s pole run equals a flood of attention…

Mike Hembree | Posted February 18, 2013 Daytona Beach, FL

Danica Patrick, driver of the No.10 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, celebrates after qualifying first for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

The fact that Danica Patrick won the Daytona 500 pole Sunday does not mean that she will win the Daytona 500.

That distinction will be lost in some of the flood of attention Patrick’s remarkable achievement is collecting. Websites from A to Z have splashed Patrick and her bright green firesuit across the Internet in the past two days, and the publicity has reached levels that NASCAR, Daytona International Speedway and Patrick’s sponsors would pay a ton to purchase. Sports editors and directors who typically pay little attention to auto racing – unless there’s a death or a delicious scandal – were all over Danica’s moment

The same World Wide Web that spread Patrick’s success across the universe also was host to not-so-civil commentary and heated discussions about the meaning of the occasion. Comment sections were aflame.

To summarize:

Danica is a starlet who can’t drive.

Danica is a rising star who will win a race this season.

Danica hasn’t shown anything in NASCAR and won’t.

Danica is a sponsor’s delight but nothing more.

Danica is soft as cotton but tough as nails and she will push her way into a raft of top 10s this year.

And so it goes.

Patrick will be a polarizing figure for as long as she is involved in the sport, and, at the moment, it appears that will be a long while, indeed. She has brought attention to the sport from a wealth of angles, and much of it has come with little regard for how she has performed on track.

Some fans love her. Some fans love to hate her. Some wish her no particular bad luck but would prefer that she simply go away.

She has grown into a strong NASCAR personality. She entered the sport a bit on edge, unsure of herself and the new environment and tentative in media sessions. Now she seems much more relaxed and prepared for the moment, although it’s clear that she has miles to go on the big learning curve that eventually equals a fully competitive posture.

Those who stopped in at the NASCAR window over the weekend because they saw Patrick’s face flash across one screen or another might be surprised if she doesn’t dominate the 500 and win by 10 seconds. Experienced fans and followers, of course, will have lower expectations, and Patrick probably would be ecstatic with a run in the top 15 Sunday.

She admitted the season, her first full-schedule run in the series, is likely to be a long one filled with speed bumps and potholes.

That it started with a flourish is a good thing for Patrick, the sport and for little girls out there who might take notice.

“I've had the experience with mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, listening to them say the reason why they're here as a family today is because of me out there, whether it brings the girls out, the guys out, whatever it is, I don't care,” Patrick said. “That's nice to hear.

“It's also nice to hear families talk about the fact that a little girl might say, ‘But, Mommy, Daddy, that's a girl out there.’ Then they can have the conversation with their kid about you can do anything you want and being different doesn't by any means not allow you to follow your dreams. I love to think that conversation happens in households because of something I'm doing.”

The something she did Sunday makes that talk louder.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 31 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Hembree

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