Danika Patrick

By Michael Gray
In Case Study, Ideas, Random Thoughts  

Sometimes it’s not important that you be the best in your game. Sometimes if you’re above average but are distinctive and set yourself apart you can work the magic and get lot’s of ink. Case and point Indy Race Car Driver Danika Patrick. Danika came onto the Indy Race Car scene a few years ago as a driver for Rahal Letterman team (Pro retired driver Bobby Rahal and David Letterman, yes that David Letterman). In her rookie Indy year she qualified at the Indy 500 with the fastes time however lost the pole position (first position for the start) due to a technicality. She did lead for few laps but ended up finishing fourth the highest position for female driver for the Indy 500. While Danica’s racing career has advanced it’s clearly been left in the dust by her publicity campaign.

Now it should be mentioned that Danika also has a few things going for her in addition to her driving skill. First of all she’s got charisma, it’s that combination of personality traits that makes you like-able. Next up is her comeliness (for you in the back of the class that means she’s hot). She can pull off professional driver, elegant runway celebrity, and sex kitten without any trouble. In any sort of competitive environment if you’ve got something that’s going to give you an advantage by all means use it.

However the fact that Danika is women is clearly ruffling a few feathers. For one Richard Petty (aka The King) said “”I just don’t think it’s a sport for women, and so far, it’s proved out. It’s really not. It’s good for them to come in. It gives us a lot of publicity, it gives them publicity. But as far as being a real true racer, making a living out of it, it’s kind of tough.”. Ed Carpeter said “I think Danica’s pretty aggressive in our cars. I mean, you know especially if you catch her at the right time of the month, she might be trading plenty of paint out there.” a statement he late retracted. So breaking into a male dominated sport isn’t easy. In fact when Danika wins a race and gets on the podium with racing’s euivilant of “booth babes” we end up with a shot that makes men look pretty gosh darn sexist.

However Danika’s getting a lot of mileage online recently, in fact much of the online world is talking about whether or Danika is going to move over to NASCAR Racing. For Indy car racing to suddenly be without it’s biggest and brightest star would be a huge loss, as it already lags behind Nascar and Formula One racing in popularity. While there has been some high level wooing going on there’s not much else to speak of. Danika’s being mum on the subject but she has previously said she wanted to win the Indianapolis 500 before thinking about moving to NASCAR. I think she’s got her sights set on winning both the INDY 500 and the Daytona 500 something only two otehr drivers AJ Foyt and Mario Andretti have done.

Related Information

• Danika Patrick via DanikaRacing.com
• Danika Patrick via Wikipedia
• Danika Patrick via IAMIndy
• Danika Patrick and NASCAR via ESPN

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