Cynics say Danica Patrick is the Tiger Woods of open-wheel racing – without the victories.
It’s not her fault she topped Woods and New England Patriots stud Tom Brady as the most-searched-for online athlete of 2008, according to an AOL study. She happens to look better in a bikini, as she demonstrated in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
Beyond the ogling, though, the 5-foot-2, 100-pound driver from Roscoe, Ill., is an accomplished and talented open-wheel competitor. She proved that on April 20, 2008, when she won an Indy Racing League event in Motegi, Japan, becoming the first woman to capture a major oval race.
Patrick, who recently shot one of those ”Got Milk” ads, is very capable of taking another milk chug – the traditional celebratory beverage for the winner – at today’s 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500.
There are drivers who rate ahead of her if you’re handicapping the race, but Patrick, who will start 10th, has all the tools to make history. It would be a great boost for the IRL, which, like almost every other commercial venture in the United States, is feeling the economic crunch.
As usual, the top teams are the best bets at the Brickyard, which opened 100 years ago. Two years later, it hosted the inaugural Indy 500, which Ray Harroun won in 6 hours, 42 minutes, 8 seconds – at an average speed of 74.6 mph.
The favorites this year include Team Penske drivers Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe, the top two qualifiers; the Target Ganassi tandem of Dario Franchitti (3rd) and Scott Dixon (5th); and Patrick’s Andretti Green teammates, Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti. Graham Rahal, the son of former Indy winner Bobby Rahal, also has established himself as a serious challenger. Rahal, who drives for Newman/Haas/Lanigan, qualified fourth.
Castroneves, the pole-sitter, seems to be a man on a mission. He won at Indy in 2001 and ’02 and narrowly was beaten by Penske teammate Gil de Ferran in ’03.
Since then, Castroneves went on to win ”Dancing With the Stars” after the 2007 IRL season. And in what might have been the biggest victory of his career, he was found not guilty last month on six counts of federal tax evasion. That enabled Castroneves, who had been facing possible prison time, to get back into the open-wheel car he loves.
”That was the best medicine, the best therapy,” he said. ”After six months of just thinking about or focusing on that (tax-evasion) subject, all of a sudden I was able to do what I love and do what I know how to do. It was the best feeling in the world coming back to the race car, coming back to the race environment.”
All things considered, Castroneves’ chief rivals shape up as Dixon, a low-key New Zealander, and Kanaan, an animated Brazilian who has been pals with Castroneves since boyhood. Dixon won the Indy 500 last year on the way to the IRL championship. Kanaan, the best driver who hasn’t won the race, is making his eighth Indy start. He never has started lower than sixth and has four top-10 finishes.
Also very much in the hunt are Briscoe, an Australian who always runs fast at Indy, and Franchitti, who won the race in 2007 driving for Andretti Green.
Nor should youngsters Andretti and Rahal be overlooked. They are far more than the next generation; they are exceptionally talented drivers who would be charismatic winners, something the IRL certainly could use in these uncertain economic times.
No winner would attract more attention than Patrick, 27, who burst onto the scene when she finished fourth at Indy four years ago. The gender-barrier angle, combined with her glamour-girl hype, would be over the top if she were to add a victory in the most famous race in the world.
Those who follow the sport know Patrick also has acquired a reputation as a bit of a prima donna. She once stomped down pit row, apparently planning to confront another driver before abandoning that notion. And there have been other incidents.
Saying that stuff is overblown, Patrick explained she merely was trying to make a statement about not just being happy to be here.
”I’ve learned from the past,” she said. ”I think I always felt like I had to prove to people that I cared and that I wasn’t happy being fifth or 12th or something by being mad. It just doesn’t really pay off, and it turns people off. It’s a lot easier and a lot more fun to be relaxed. It’s all bunnies and rainbows around here.”
No statement would be louder, she knows, than winning at the hallowed Brickyard.
