Completely Off Topic: Danica Patrick Wins

so congratulations!

It is pretty cool. I’ve always rooted for her in races and I’m glad she finally got her first win under her belt.

She definitely deserved it.

I just can’t congratulate her. Too many issues, too many interviews where crew, owners, and sponsors have been thrown under the bus, and too few competition in the 2008 IRL. And girl, quite showing skin, and then blaming men for not taking you seriously.

So gratulations instead to Janet Guthrie, Lynn St. James, Sara Fisher, and all the female race and stock drivers who’ve dreamed the dream. I’m sure somewhere there were some tears of joy shed last night.

As a race fan, I’m hopeful that this stops the incessant blathering over her looks and increases her respect as a racecar driver…

While this was the one weekend the Champ Cars were not running with the IRL cars this year, it is still a heck of an accomplishment to win a race. It took her 50 tries, even WITH the reduced competition Damen pointed out…

A healthy rivalry between IRL and NASCAR can only be a great thing for the auto racing industry as a whole in the USA…just too bad Danica’s win didn’t take place in the US…

I remember her Toyota Atlantics days and even her Barber Dodge days. It seemed like she and Bobby Rahal were glued at the hip.

Anyway, I had thought she had already won a race – maybe I’m thinking of her placing well at Indy.

Back in high school [‘97-’01] and the early part of college, my two friends and I went to sooo many CART races in the summer. Road America, Mid Ohio, Milwaukee, Chicago, even Toronto and some of the other far flung races [though the farthest race I ever went to was Toronto]. We had so much fun. We’d chase all the drivers we had crushes on, sweet talk our way into getting food at hospitality suites or even bunking hotel rooms with people – we couldn’t not take advantage of being the only cute young girls who were there when we were pretty broke and could barely afford tickets. And of course, there was plenty of drinking, despite being underage. I think my greatest memory is RA in ‘98, when Dario Franchitti won his first CART race. We stalked followed him and Greg Moore around that night at Siebken’s, and then someone convinced Greg to come over and chat with my friend and I… I’ll never forget that night.

But then… Greg Moore died, teams started defecting to the IRL or going out of business, Alex Zanardi lost his leg in that awful accident just days after 9/11… It was probably a combination of those events and us just simply growing up [and a little apart], but racing lost its lustre. It’ll never be as fun or as exciting as it was when I was young and naïve, so it’s hard for me to follow it now.

Anyway, back to you Keystone: I’m happy she’s won. It was always so fun to stick with a driver from their ‘minor league’ days and seeing them rise to success. I’m sure she’ll have many more after this.

I live about 40 miles from the epicenter. I was still awake when the first quake hit at about 4:35 a.m., and it was not a fun experience. It felt like it lasted for at least 40 seconds. The second quake (not an aftershock) hit at about 10:15 a.m., and woke me up. I was on edge the rest of the day. I don’t want to go through that again anytime soon.

n/t

I just don’t get it. I mean, how much fun is watching traffic? Oh well, a lot of people hate baseball, so to each his or her own.

... you got some linkage on the SBN auto-racing site.