Danica Patrick’s presence in NASCAR has given a much-needed ratings boost to the NASCAR Nationwide Series. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
It’s fair to say that Danica Patrick’s flirtation with NASCAR has gotten off to a challenging start, at least the on track part of it. In five NASCAR Nationwide Series starts, she has only one finish better than 30th, a 24th last weekend at Chicagoland Speedway.
Driving for JR Motorsports, a front-running team that has shown its capable of winning races, Patrick is 61st in NNS points, trailing 15 other drivers who have made the same number of starts or fewer than she has.
On the flip side, Patrick’s presence in NASCAR has given a much-needed ratings boost to the Nationwide Series. Her souvenir trailers are consistently mobbed and she has brought a lot of attention to herself and NASCAR at a time when interest is declining.
At her day gig with Andretti Autosport, Patrick is 11th in the IZOD IndyCar points standings heading into this weekend’s race in Toronto. She has one top-five finish in her open-wheeler, a second at Texas.
With the 2010 racing schedule at roughly the halfway point, how should Patrick’s performance be evaluated? To answer that, we brought in Tom Jensen, SPEED.com’s editor-in-chief and Marshall Pruett, SPEED.com’s auto racing editor.
GRADE PATRICK’s NASCAR SEASON TO DATE.
JENSEN: Incomplete. Like those racy GoDaddy.com ads that hint at a lot and show next to nothing, Patrick’s NASCAR season to date so far has been a frustrating tease. To her credit, she has consistently improved as the weekends go on, but she is starting at such a deficit in terms of seat time that’s it hard to evaluate what she ultimately will or won’t deliver. The jury is still out.
PRUETT: F (as in F-ailure to prepare). Has any driver from the world of open-wheel or sportscar racing come to NASCAR more under prepared than Patrick? Her total lack of respect for stock car racing has shown in how little she’s gotten to know the technical aspects of the ARCA and NNS machines she’s driven. She was impressive in her debut, taking a proverbial gun to a knife fight, but since then, her success or failure has been left entirely to her crew chief. Patrick readily admits she knows nothing about the cars, and until she does her homework and can help Tony Eury Jr. to improve the car, she’ll be stuck somewhere between 20th and 30th wherever they go.
GRADE PATRICK’s IZOD INDYCAR SEASON TO DATE.
PRUETT: D (as in “D-isappearing Danica”). Gone is the steady, positive and content driver who finished fifth in the 2009 IZOD IndyCar Series championship – ahead of all her teammates – and took 8 top-6s from 17 races. Whether it was the work of a hypnotist or a prescription for Prozac last year, DP’s demeanor has taken a big step back in 2010, as witnessed by her venomous outburst aimed at her Andretti Autosport team at Indy.
Since then – and we’re only talking about two months – she’s become the black sheep of the Andretti team. Team leader Tony Kanaan refuses to acknowledge her, much less speak to the tantrum-prone starlet. Ryan Hunter-Reay smiles and ignores her. Marco Andretti shrugs and daydreams about swimsuit models. Team owner Michael Andretti, on the other hand, remains thankful for the enormous sponsor checks that Patrick delivers.
It’s the Real Housewives of New Jersey-meets-IndyCar racing, but with more in-fighting, hidden agendas, bad manners and lowered expectations.
As long as Patrick refuses to take her meds and remains stuck in her doom and gloom personality, she’ll continue to underwhelm in IndyCar and NASCAR. If she can get back to the “Princess Sparkle Pony” persona (credit SPEED’s Tommy Kendall for that one — best line ever spoken by a Wind Tunnel guest) of ’09, maybe she can start making headlines again for all the right reasons.
JENSEN: C. I will defer to my colleague’s judgment on this, but with the exception of Patrick’s runner-up at Texas, she certainly hasn’t looked like a threat to win with any kind of regularity. The most damning indictment, in my book, is that she trails all three of her full-time Andretti Autosport teammates in points.
