Danica Patrick reportedly is in talks with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to join his NASCAR team. This apparently has been going on for months, with Danica visiting various NASCAR locales and floating trial balloons all summer. Even though she just signed a deal with Mario Andretti’s team that will keep her in the Indy league for at least three more years, the contract does make provisions for Patrick to participate in a ‘limited number’ of races outside the IRL.
I’m confident that Patrick is ready for NASCAR. My question is, is NASCAR ready for Danica Patrick? This is a sport who’s primary audience is… what’s the politically correct term for “redneck”? Since redneck mostly vote Republican, I guess they haven’t earned a politically correct name yet. But rednecks like things a certain way. They like beer, not wine. They like monster trucks, not opera. They like manly man race cars drivers not hot bikini models. To clarify – rednecks do like hot bikini models, they just don’t like them driving race cars. They prefer their bikini models to straddle muscle cars on calendars in the garage, not to sit in the cars and race them around the track.
Anyway, the point is that I’m not sure how well Danica will be accepted by the masses. NASCAR fans generally don’t like Tony Stewart because he’s too girly. Since she can participate only in a limited number of races, she’ll be irrelevant to the cup chase, unless she acts as a spoiler. How will they react if Denny Hamlin is knocked out of the cup chase by a girl? What if Danica Patrick were to edge out Dale Junior on the last lap at Daytona?
For the record, I’m all for Danica entering NASCAR, beach volleyball, the NFL, or any other sport she wants to try (but especially beach volleyball). I’m just wondering how well the rank and file NASCAR crowd will take to her. On the bright side, NASCAR should sell a lot more calendars this year.
[...] first reported on this site back in October that Danica Patrick was in talks to sign with Dale Earnhardt Jr. to enter into [...]