The media hype that occasioned Danica Patrick’s debut on the IndyCar circuit rivaled that which occasioned Tiger Woods’s on the PGA tour. Except that, where Woods wasted no time living up to his hype, Patrick seemed fated never to live up to hers.
In fact, I found her results so pedestrian that, just three years after her debut, I was already dismissing her as little more than a “ring girl” for her sport. Here in part is how I shared my disappointment and disillusionment in “Danica Patrick Finally Wins IndyCar Race,” April 22, 2008.
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I know many of you consider car racing a sport only simple-minded, beer-drinking, tobacco-chewing rednecks could enjoy. But this reflects your ignorance far more than it does any lack of sophistication among the fans of this sport.
After all, IndyCar racing is a sport that requires the steady nerves of a surgeon, daring skills of a jet fighter, and physical stamina of a marathon runner. And no sport can match the non-stop thrill, nail-biting anxiety, and death-defying excitement one gets from watching those cars zoom around that track – jockeying for position at an average speed of over 220 mph … for 500 miles!
Now add to these exhilarating dynamics Danica Patrick – all 5’1”, 100lbs of her in full racing armor – and the world’s most watched sporting event (with over 300,000 in the stands) is injected with a level of human interest that transcends sport.
Indeed, when Patrick made her debut on the all-male Indy racing circuit in 2005, I was among the ardent feminists heralding her as the Tiger Woods of her sport. In fact, I thought her performance in that year’s feature race, the Indianapolis 500, was so promising that I wrote the following:
What a debut Patrick made! Because, after racing in such dramatic fashion – by skillfully navigating through a number of harrowing crashes, leading the race on several occasions (including at lap 190 of 200) and finishing 4th out of 33 of the world’s best drivers – Patrick easily surpassed her media hype and demonstrated beyond doubt that a woman is equal to any man when it comes to the sport of auto racing.
Therefore, imagine how disappointing it has been for me to watch her turn into the Anna Kournikova of this sport, namely a babe who competes more to win commercial ads than car races.
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That was 10 years ago. I appreciate that many of you probably have no idea what Anna Kournikova was to tennis. Therefore, a more familiar analogy might be to say that Danica Patrick became to racing what Kim Kardashian is to acting.
In fact, the victory I hailed back then turned out to be the only one of Patrick’s career. This, despite her 116 starts on the IndyCar circuit and 191 on the NASCAR circuit. Frankly, her switch to NASCAR smacked of a mid-career crisis. I suspect it began dawning even on Patrick that she was proving herself as little more than a ring girl for IndyCar racing.
Meanwhile, fans know that she DNFed the majority of races during her career. Indeed, it’s noteworthy that she crashed out of her final NASCAR race, February’s Daytona 500. Because that makes the way she finished her final IndyCar race on Sunday seem all the more fitting:
Patrick crashed on Lap 68 of the Indianapolis 500 in her first IndyCar race since 2011 and the race she chose to end a career where she was the highest-finishing woman in the Indianapolis 500 (third in 2009) and the Daytona 500 (eighth in 2013).
Patrick was obviously devastated her career ended with her worst career finish in eight Indianapolis 500 starts.
(ESPN, May 27, 2018)
Mind you, she probably couldn’t care less about results at this point. After all, for years now, she has seemed perfectly happy to have people recognize her more as the GoDaddy commercial spokesmodel than the GoDaddy IndyCar driver. Not to mention the way she flaunts her new role as a bona-fide WAG (i.e., the Instagram-posing girlfriend of superstar NFL quarterback Aaron Rogers).
Alas, this makes hailing Danica Patrick as an icon of IndyCar racing even more specious than hailing Megan Markle as an icon of new-age feminism.
Incidentally, Australian driver Will Power powered to the winner’s circle in the 102nd running of this most famous of all car races – with all due respect to F1’s Monaco Grand Prix.
As it happened, F1 had the 76th running of that race on Sunday too. And, irony of ironies, another relatively unknown Australian driver, Daniel Ricciardo, won. Of course, where ratings in America are concerned, F1 is to IndyCar as Premier League is to NFL.
Unfortunately, the Monaco Grand Prix has become so predictable (i.e., boring) – with few opportunities for thrilling passes – that positions in the starting grid almost always translate to results. Sure enough, Ricciardo (who had the highly determinative pole position), Sebastian Vettel, and Lewis Hamilton had the top-three starting positions, respectively. And that’s how they finished.
In any event, on behalf of all fans of IndyCar and NASCAR racing, I say thanks for the drive-by and good riddance, Danica.
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