Danica meets Daytona (Yahoo! Sports)
December 18, 2009
There were many things Danica Patrick didn’t know on the first day of an ARCA Series test at Daytona International Speedway on Friday.
She didn’t know the track was actually 2.5 miles long.
She didn’t know she had to completely change the way she dresses before slinking inside the car – from red balaclava to hair tucked in fire suit.
She didn’t really know how she would handle a cumbersome stock car on an expansive oval, though she had an inkling she could.
Patrick got answers to many of her
questions, although rains delayed, then shortened her first ARCA test with JR Motorsports – the team with which she will attempt her first 13 Nationwide Series races this season – and despite the anxiety, the pressure and very public nature of her on-the-job training, she seemed to like what she learned.
“The car is different. It definitely moves around quite a bit,” Patrick said after logging the 12th-fastest lap of the 26 cars on hand for the test. She was 4.5 mph slower than the leader. “I didn’t
want to have an accident, but I felt all right. It was fun. I trusted the car. I trusted the preparation of it. I trusted the guys. I trust [crew chief] Tony [Eury Jr.] putting a setup on there that isn’t going to do anything horrendous, and it didn’t. It was fine. But it’s definitely a lot more movement than I am used to in the corners. I’ll have to get used to that.”
That’s just the start of it. Patrick arrived at her race car in the garage bay at Daytona to find she had to completely relearn how to prepare
to drive. It’s impossible to slip inside the cockpit with the helmet on, like in an IndyCar, and once inside the safety harnesses became unwieldy.
“I felt most disoriented with how the heck I am supposed to get my stuff on?” she said. “I can’t get in the car with all that stuff and I can’t buckle my belts and I can’t do it with my helmet on. So I get in the car and I have to tuck my hair down the back of the suit and I can’t do it because I am strapped in and I am just awfully confused, so I decided I
needed everything on but my helmet and then get in the car. It sounds silly, right? It’s logistics, but they’re logistics I am not used to.”
So, too, was the stress of being the singular object of attention, even for a driver who already is one of the most recognized in sports.
“It was a bit of a circus out there,” she said. “I’m not unfamiliar with having people around, although it does seem a little funny when there is not much else going on. I definitely felt very singled out. I’m lucky for that. So it
definitely felt like there is a lot of interest. I definitely felt the lenses of cameras all morning.”
And not just from media. The ARCA garage this weekend is filled with unusual storylines, from an Indian and a Chinese driver, a record nine female drivers, Sprint Cup prospects and workaday teams that grind on ill-fitting parts with power tools on pit road or tape numbers to their doors with, well, tape. More than once on Friday, Patrick was approached by competitors hoping to snap a quick photograph.
Even
NASCAR president Mike Helton stopped by for a peek.
“I think it’s good,” he said of the anticipation surrounding Patrick’s NASCAR exploration. “I know it’s good. It’s very high profile, and she’s got a good deal of experience with a following. … You take someone with the profile that Danica has, the attention that she attracts, that doesn’t hurt, either.”
Patrick, who recently signed a two-year contract with a mutual third-year option with Andretti Autosport, said her much-scrutinized partial NASCAR
schedule for the next two seasons should be sufficient to learn a completely new car and therefore make an informed decision about her future. However, several drivers, such as Juan Pablo Montoya, who have made full-time conversions from open wheel to NASCAR said a full commitment is required.
“It’s actually amazing how much I am learning from Tony [Eury] Jr. and Sr. [JR Motorsports competition director],” she said, adding that fellow driver Kelly Bires texted her all morning asking if she needed any help. “I
have tremendous amount of help. … I am taking in a whole bunch of information, so I am learning a lot and I think it’s going to pay off. I’m really, really applying myself for sure.”
Still, Patrick’s first IndyCar owner, Bobby Rahal, was surprised last week that Michael Andretti signed off on allowing his most marketable driver to dabble in stock cars.
“I presume they have invested a lot of money in her, and if she gets hurt in a stock car, what does that do to their IndyCar program?” Rahal asked.
“The IndyCar program is so demanding. I don’t know how you find the time for all that, to be honest. But we’ll find out.”
Yet another question to be answered.
Earnhardt plans to live vicariously through Danica (NASCAR.com)
December 18, 2009
Had life taken a few different turns some years ago, the person who just spearheaded the hiring of Danica Patrick might have preceded Patrick as NASCAR's most famous female driver.
And yes, Kelley Earnhardt is more than a little jealous of the woman she just hired to drive a part-time Nationwide Series schedule for JR Motorsports.
"Oh, gosh. I joke with her and tell her I'm going to live vicariously through her—because this would be my dream," said Earnhardt, who is a decade older than the 27-year-old Patrick. "I wanted to drive race cars."
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The fact is, Kelley Earnhardt did drive race cars. Drove 'em pretty well, too. She ended up being good enough in Late Models that she beat her younger brother, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and her cousin, Tony Eury Jr. Not often and not regularly, but both men admit it happened and don't do so sheepishly.
That's because Kelley Earnhardt used to drive well enough that losing to her was no embarrassment. Well, Eury Jr. did have a little problem with his dad, Tony Eury Sr., after the fact. Both the younger and older Eury since have gone on to have success as NASCAR crew chiefs, and Tony Jr. will serve as Patrick's Nationwide crew chief.
"She beat me. Once. Pops let me have it so bad afterward that I tried real hard not to let it ever happen again," Eury Jr. said of Kelley.
"I raced with her several times over at Tri-County [Racetrack in Brasstown, N.C.] She was a very good race-car driver. We thought she probably had as much or more talent than any of them. She was just so aggressive."
The operative word in Eury's statement is "we." He was referring to the Earnhardt family, and that included Dale's legendary father, the seven-time NASCAR Cup champion. He used to tell folks that Kelley had all the skills to make it as a top-notch driver.
"We all thought that," Eury Jr. said.
Life happened
What happened to Kelley's budding driving career, then?
Life got in the way. Throughout her formative years as a driver, she was busy off the track—going to college, getting her start in the business world. As time went on, she was doing well enough at work away from the track that leaving the office early every Friday afternoon to go racin' suddenly seemed counterproductive.
So she eventually gave it up when sponsorship for her car ran out following the 1996 season. She said she figures her career path might have been different if she had come along later.
"The sport in the mid-1990s, it wasn't welcoming to women," she said.
Now she's helping run her more famous brother's Nationwide racing operation. She was the driving force behind signing Patrick, one of the most popular drivers in the IndyCar Series, to a two-year contract to drive part-time for JR Motorsports—and she figures Patrick has several advantages to making it to the top in NASCAR, over time, that she herself lacked years ago.
"This really is the first female competitor to be backed with the right stuff," Earnhardt said. "This is a championship-caliber team. We compete week in and week out for the win. So for her to be in the position she's in, she's got the best opportunity any female has ever gotten in our sport.
"Would I love to be doing it? Absolutely. I love NASCAR, I love the fans, I love what we can be … I love the challenge. So I definitely would love to be in her shoes. I love the competitiveness, I love the adrenalin rush that you feel when you get in a race car. I know what that feels like and can speak to that. I'd definitely like it to be me.
"But I'm very comfortable in my position. I've been helping Dale run JR Motorsports for eight years now. Like Dale has said, that he feels like he was born to drive. I feel like this is what I was born to do. I was always good in school, very academically gifted, and very smart with the business mind. I feel like I'm well-rounded. I'm still very competitive—but I'm comfortable and I'm happy."
Brother's thoughts
Dale Jr. remembers watching Kelley drive and marveling at her guts. No one in the family or outside of the family that he remembers from that time drove it harder into the corner of a race track.
"She was hard-headed as hell," Junior said. "You know that old saying that you can't push a rope? You can't tell somebody to drive into a corner deeper—but you can tell a driver to back off and not overdrive it. Well, that was her.
"You always wonder about someone when they get into a race car for the first time. She was one of them people who started overdriving the car from Day One. And that's good. You can slow that down. You can't force somebody into something that they're not comfortable with—but you can slow down somebody who is overdoing it. The hard part was just getting her to do that, but she wasn't scared. Not one bit."
There also was the matter of a young woman with the last name of Earnhardt running hard and trying to beat a bunch of men. Most didn't take kindly to that.
"She ran a lot at Tri-County and got pushed around quite a bit—but she didn't take much [crap] off anybody. And I got a lot of funny pictures of her with her face red as hell after a couple of little incidents," Junior said.
"She was a trip. She was so, so damn competitive and would get so upset if things didn't go the way she thought they should. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed when we were racing together. We didn't race at the same track a whole lot—but I enjoyed that period when Kelley and [brother] Kerry and I were all racing. We'd take off in three different directions on a Friday afternoon, and then we'd come back on Sunday and be looking at everybody's stuff and everything, wondering how each of us did, comparing notes. It was eventful."
Could his sister have become Danica before Danica?
"It's hard to say. I think she would have had a lot of opportunities, if it had been a different environment and a different culture, I suppose," Earnhardt Jr. said of Kelley. "She would have had plenty of opportunities to see what her chances of making it would have been.
"She was hard-headed and tough and drove hard. I think she eventually would have polished her skills to where she would have been a pretty good race-car driver—at the higher levels, even."
Kelley appreciates all the compliments, but said she knows her place now. And it's behind a desk at JR Motorsports, not behind the wheel of one of their race cars.
Still, there are days when her mind wanders—and she wonders what might have been.
"It wasn't hard then [to give it up]. I liked doing it but didn't think then about what it could become, and what I could become," Kelley said. "So I wouldn't say it was hard to stop racing. I was excelling in what I was doing in the business world. I was getting promoted, my dad was very proud of what I was doing, that I had gone to college and that kind of thing.
"So I can't say it was hard to quit. It's harder now to think about quitting than it was to actually do it back then. I kick myself more in the butt now for quitting than I did then, if that makes any sense."
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
Pastrana ready to barge into New Year
December 18, 2009
Action sports wild man Travis Pastrana is ready to barge into the New Year.
Pastrana has wrapped up practice for his New Year’s Eve extravaganza, whenhe will attempt to set a world record for the longest jump in a rally car, fromthe Pine Street Pier in Long Beach, Calif., onto a barge anchored in the harbor.
Related Baum: Pastrana, Brack push envelope at X Games
The current record is 171 feet set by Pastrana’s Subaru teammate, Ken Block,in a rally car in November 2006. Pastrana wants to break that mark by more than100 feet, and said he’s aiming to clear approximately 230 feet of water betweenthe pier and barge.
While he had some hard landings and one end-over-end wipeout during hispractice jumps, Pastrana is confident he can complete the jump without ending upin the water.
Former track owners abandon NASCAR lawsuit
December 18, 2009
SPARTA, Ky. (AP)—The former owners of Kentucky Speedway are done fighting with NASCAR.
The group announced Friday that it will not exercise any remaining legal options in its four-year battle against NASCAR and International Speedway Corp.
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Last week a federal appeals court rejected claims by the former owners that NASCAR and ISC violated federal antitrust laws by working with other tracks to keep the 1.5-mile tri-oval in northern Kentucky from getting a coveted Sprint Cup race.
Former owner Jerry Carroll said while his group still believes in the merits of the case, it was time to move on.
The owners sold the track to Speedway Motorsports Inc., last year. SMI owner Bruton Smith said he’s hopeful that with the case resolved he can bring a Cup race to the track in 2011.
Danica Patrick gets taste of NASCAR at Daytona
December 18, 2009
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (AP)—IndyCar Series star Danica Patrick turned her first laps in a stock car at Daytona International Speedway on Friday.
Dozens of photographers and reporters followed Patrick’s every move as she completed five laps before rain washed out the Automobile Racing Club of America test.
Patrick said she was “learning a lot and I think it’s going to pay off.” She was scheduled to make her stock car debut in an ARCA race at Daytona in February.
She said her laps around the 2 1/2 -mile (3-kilometer) superspeedway felt “a little slow.” Her top speed was 176.142 mph (283.46 kph), which was about 50 mph (80 kph) off the IndyCar pace at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She was 12th out of 24 drivers on the Daytona speed chart.
Her biggest problem on Friday? She struggled getting in and out of the car with her helmet on.
Patrick will race a limited stock car schedule in NASCAR’s minor series next year while she competes full-time in IndyCar.
Kentucky Speedway’s former owner won’t appeal (NASCAR.com)
December 18, 2009
Former Kentucky Speedway chairman Jerry Carroll announced Friday the founding track ownership group will not exercise remaining legal options in the case of Kentucky Speedway, LLC v. NASCAR, et al.
"On behalf of the original partners of Kentucky Speedway, I have informed our attorneys we will not pursue any remaining appeals in the case of Kentucky Speedway, LLC v. NASCAR, et al. While we still believe in the merits of the case, it is time to accept the decision of the courts and move on.
"I appreciate the continuing opportunity to assist and consult with [current track owner] Bruton Smith, Gov. Steve Beshear and our dedicated corporate partners to realize our shared dream of bringing a Sprint Cup Series race to Kentucky."
On Dec. 11, a federal appeals court rejected claims by Kentucky Speedway that NASCAR and International Speedway Corp. violated federal antitrust laws by keeping it off the premier racing circuit.
The panel said Kentucky Speedway failed to prove NASCAR and International Speedway Corp., worked together with other tracks to keep the Kentucky track from getting a Sprint Cup race.
Kentucky Speedway sued NASCAR in 2005 after being rejected multiple times for a top level race alleging that NASCAR had conspired to leave the Sparta track and others out of the Cup Series despite their superior amenities. The speedway had asked that ISC be ordered to sell some of the tracks it owns that host Cup races and that the speedway be awarded more than $200 million in damages.
Speedway Motorsports Inc. purchased Kentucky Speedway from Carroll in 2008.
Related:
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Patrick to make NASCAR debut at California
December 17, 2009
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (AP)—Danica Patrick will not make her NASCAR debut at Daytona International Speedway, and instead will wait one week and attempt to race in the Nationwide Series race in California.
The IndyCar star is still finalizing her NASCAR schedule, which is expected to be 13 Nationwide races for JR Motorsports.
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Kelley Earnhardt, co-owner of JRM, says that Patrick will try to make the Nationwide races at Auto Club Speedway on Feb. 20 and the Feb. 27 race at Las Vegas.
Her stock-car debut will come in the Feb. 6 ARCA race at Daytona. She will test that car this weekend.
Sauber names Kobayashi as 2010 driver (PA SportsTicker)
December 17, 2009
HINWIL, SWITZERLAND(AP) —Formula One team Sauber has named Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi as a driver for the 2010 season.
Kobayashi is the first driver to be named for the team, which is back in the ownership of founder Peter Sauber after BMW withdrew at the end of the 2009 campaign.
Kobayashi impressed as a fill-in driver for Toyota for the final two races of 2009, finishing sixth in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
“I am very happy that my two races in 2009 have earned me a cockpit place,” Kobayashi said in a statement Thursday. “I will do my very best for Peter Sauber’s team and I am proud to be able to carry on flying the Japanese flag in Formula One.”
Troubled Milwaukee Mile won’t host 2010 races
December 16, 2009
WEST ALLIS, Wis. (AP)—The Milwaukee Mile will fall mostly silent in 2010.
After months of negotiations with four potential promoters for thefinancially troubled racetrack failed to reach the finish line, the WisconsinState Fair Park board of directors announced Wednesday that the track will nothost any major racing events in 2010.
The track, which dates back to 1903, has hosted NASCAR and Indy RacingLeague races in recent years.
In a statement, board officials said the potential promoter it negotiatedwith most recently was not moving forward because the track’s margin forprofitability was “too thin.”
The board said the track will continue to host car clubs and driving schoolsnext year, and officials will continue to search for a promoter to bring majorevents back in 2011.
Where is the love for ‘other’ Chase champion? (NASCAR.com)
December 16, 2009
It was not exactly how I had expected my Champion's Week experience to begin. Right on schedule, I drove my Chrysler LeBaron rental car onto Las Vegas Boulevard, ready to participate in the "Victory Lap" parade down the neon canyon known as the Strip. For the past few days I had been practicing burnouts, and though I hadn't quite mastered the tactic, I had been able to produce several plumes of smoke from underneath the hood. Good enough, I thought. I rolled up to the police barrier and told one of Metro PD's finest that I was ready to fall in line behind Carl Edwards.
"Are you a driver?" the officer asked.
"No," I replied. "I'm a writer."
He pointed in a different direction. "Then you'll have to get on the bus."
Which is how I found myself not spinning doughnuts in front of thousands of adoring fans, but riding behind the proceedings on an open-topped double-decker bus, freezing in the wind. I couldn't even see what was going on, what with feather-bedecked showgirl headdresses and Wayne Newton's magnificent coif of hair obscuring the view. So I sat in the back, in a cold metal seat, listening to the people cheering and the engines revving and the tires spinning. And I seethed. After all, what NASCAR champion deserves to be treated this way?
People say Jimmie Johnson doesn't get enough respect. Please. Try being the Chase's "other" champion, the winner of NASCAR's Chase Tracker competition, which comes with about as much glory as being the 12th man to walk on the moon (Harrison Schmitt, I know how you feel, big man). I should have known it would be this way after I clinched the title at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and I stood on top of my laptop with my arms held high in celebration, and was showered not in confetti but in quizzical looks from everyone else in the media center.
Where's the love here, people? I mean, Johnson earned $6 million and undying adulation for beating 11 other guys. Meanwhile, yours truly successfully subdued a Chase Tracker field of 88 participants. Johnson's competition involved "celebrities"—and I use that term loosely—like Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne and Juan Montoya. The real star power was in the Chase Tracker, where I outwitted luminaries like pro bowler Danny Wiseman, bull rider Matt Bohon, and U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC). Seriously, Bohon can get the best table at any restaurant in Cole Camp, Mo. And McHenry? Just trying walking down the streets of Gastonia sometime with that guy. It gets crazy.
OK, so maybe there were a few other celebrities involved in the Chase Tracker, where media types and Hollywood glitterati picked race winners and point standings for each playoff event. McHenry did the best, placing 14th overall. But none of them was a match for "One-Time," the new nickname I have bestowed upon myself. Chef Emeril Lagasse? Bam, you're done. Philadelphia Eagles placekicker David Akers? You've been booted. Rock band OAR? You're DOA. Classic rock group Foreigner? It's a blue morning, blue day for you, isn't it? Miss USA Kristen Dalton, author Janet Evanovich, Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley? There's always next year.
The championship was the product of perseverance and hard work. The Chase Tracker is a somewhat complicated competition, because you have to predict what the point standings will look like every week. You don't just throw this together in a few minutes, people. Getting it right takes science. In consultation with mathematicians at MIT, I spent months constructing an algorithm that analyzed everything from historical trends and track data to barometric pressure and driver shoe size. My lab featured blackboards covered in loop data. The result, produced moments before the green flag fell at New Hampshire, was a revelation: pick Jimmie.
And that's what I did, taking the champ to win five Chase races and the title. He won four and the title. Close enough. Oh, you should have been there at Homestead for the dramatic ending. It would have been riveting, had anyone paid any attention. While Johnson was wiping the floor with the competition, winning the Sprint Cup title by 141 points, I edged Jerry Van Der Ploeg of Eurosport TV by a far more dramatic 16. Taking water only on that last pit stop at the media buffet likely proved to be the difference.
So at the postseason awards ceremony in Las Vegas, when Johnson said "I've always wanted to be respected for the work I've put in," I knew exactly how he felt. Or at least, I thought I did. I had come to the Wynn with a speech all prepared, ready to thank all the little people back at NASCAR.COM for their support, my hot date, my column sponsor (hint, hint), and NASCAR senior communications manager Stu Hothem for encouraging me to participate in the first place. But there must have been some confusion as I attempted to make my way to the stage, because I wound up being "detained" in a "back room" by casino security. Oh well, they must have wanted to give Frank Caliendo an extra segment.
Still, the lack of attention was a little strange. As I stood in front of the famous Las Vegas welcome sign to be photographed, just like Johnson, all I heard was "get out of the way!" I arranged my own champion's reception in front of the 25-cent blackjack table at Slots-A-Fun, but the only person who showed up was a pit boss who ordered me to either gamble or leave. It's all gotten to be too much. Champions should not be treated like this. I have half a mind to run a partial schedule in the IndyCar Tracker next season.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
