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Originally Posted by Ronzi
Jim, I have made basically three statements about Danica Patrick's career.
1.) Some of her publicity efforts do not contribute to her being taken seriously as a racing driver. A personal opinion; you and others are free to disagree.
2.) She has yet to prove she can be a winner at the top levels of motorsport. Thusfar she has zero wins, and therefore is not a "winner".
3.) She gets a lot of publicity due to the fact that she is an attractive woman driver and thus an oddity, not because she has had spectacularly good results in the races she has run. There are drivers who have WON the Indy 500 and are virtually unknown outside the open-wheel racing community, Buddy Rice being but one example.
Danica has done well thusfar in her career, but in my opinion, little better than could be expected given the fact that she has had the advantage of pretty good equipment during her stint with Rahal-Letterman.
Will she do better with Andretti-Green? I hope so, but she will doubtless be playing second fiddle to Marco Andretti. Not necessarily a good thing, but then how many races would Rubens Barrichello have won if he hadn't been second fiddle to Schumi at Ferrari?
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Hi,
OK, fair enough. But, one thing about her equipment, last year the IRL went to all Honda engines, Firestone Tires and Rahall-letterman also introduced a new chassis. So, on a new engine, new tires and a new chassis, Danica had her worst year yet, but her teamates' records also suffered similarly. Coincidence or truly equipment related? It's not at all unusual to take a season to sort out a new pkg.
With AGR, Danica will be on a proven engine/tire/chassis combination and I expect to see her pick it back up. Yea, she'll start out second chair to Marco, but she'll be nipping at his heels and if she starts to win, knowing Michael, the positions will be reversed. It'll be interesting that's one thing I say with some confidence.
I am glad she didn't follow R-L to NASCAR though, the IRL isn't really as strong a venue as many had hoped or expected and I think she'll help that to whatever degree (especially if she starts posting wins). I think that while her purse would swell by jumping to NASCAR, it'd be a waste of her talent and renew all the controversy in the Press. I say "Let's just go Racing!"...
Happy Motoring!... Jim'99