Danica Patrick - 4th position at Indy (NWS)
05-29-05, 05:56 PM
#17
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Originally Posted by ebruce2
Semantics.. 
Why the hate?? "Some degree of talent" doesn't get you chosen as an Indy car driver. I guess Rahal Letterman put her under contract for short term marketing. Last time I checked it costs millions upon millions to run these race teams, and as far as I know the goal of racing is to WIN, not just to market an auto marque. "More talk than walk" doesn't yield the results seen today. Tell that to everybody who finished behind her today. A strong team can only get a driver so far, and male or female, she qualified 4th for God's sake... even as a rookie I might add. She gave these guys a run for their money and there is no denying that fact. Give credit where it is due. No band-wagon jumping here, just facts.
Why the hate?? "Some degree of talent" doesn't get you chosen as an Indy car driver. I guess Rahal Letterman put her under contract for short term marketing.
Last time I checked it costs millions upon millions to run these race teams, and as far as I know the goal of racing is to WIN, not just to market an auto marque. "More talk than walk" doesn't yield the results seen today. Tell that to everybody who finished behind her today. A strong team can only get a driver so far, and male or female, she qualified 4th for God's sake... even as a rookie I might add. She gave these guys a run for their money and there is no denying that fact. Give credit where it is due. No band-wagon jumping here, just facts. You call it "hate," I call it a reality check. Everyone's talking about her like she's the next big thing and it really pisses me off because most people who ride her bandwagon haven't sat through a season of F1. If they did, they would realize she isn't a big deal.
05-29-05, 06:23 PM
#18
Lexus Fanatic
I agree that there is too much attention on just her alone. She is not the first female in racing by any means.....she follows in the footsteps of Lyn St. James, Sarah Fisher, and Denise McCluggage ( McCluggage now an auto writer whose columns I read regularly in AUTOWEEK and elsewhere ).
However, that of course does not mean we should just ignore or downplay her....I wish her the best of luck in the future.
However, that of course does not mean we should just ignore or downplay her....I wish her the best of luck in the future.
05-29-05, 07:16 PM
#20
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Originally Posted by ebruce2
drink up, Adrian..... he he. 
You know you'd hit it.
The chick has major cojones...she has my respect if not yours. C'est la vie.
You know you'd hit it.
The chick has major cojones...she has my respect if not yours. C'est la vie.
Hatorade is tasty as hell. You're right I'd hit it, just like she hit one of her competitors when she spun today.
But you know there are both better looking women and better race drivers out there. I guess we'll agree to disagree!
05-30-05, 01:12 AM
#22
Originally Posted by AdrianXT
Holla! Indy is pretty much the open-wheel equivalent of NASCAR.
I watched the last half-hour of the race just for giggles...I don't think I've heard the word "best" used more times:
"best drivers"
"best cars"
"best teams"
But for all of you who are unaware and/or bought into ABC's brilliant hype of this race, the "best drivers," "best cars," and "best teams" did not compete at Indy today. The "best" could be seen at the Nur in Germany earlier this morning.
I watched the last half-hour of the race just for giggles...I don't think I've heard the word "best" used more times:
"best drivers"
"best cars"
"best teams"
But for all of you who are unaware and/or bought into ABC's brilliant hype of this race, the "best drivers," "best cars," and "best teams" did not compete at Indy today. The "best" could be seen at the Nur in Germany earlier this morning.
I wonder how boring it gets driving around in a circle for 500 laps
Originally Posted by ebruce2
Semantics..
Why the hate?? "Some degree of talent" doesn't get you chosen as an Indy car driver. I guess Rahal Letterman put her under contract for short term marketing. Last time I checked it costs millions upon millions to run these race teams, and as far as I know the goal of racing is to WIN, not just to market an auto marque. "More talk than walk" doesn't yield the results seen today. Tell that to everybody who finished behind her today. A strong team can only get a driver so far, and male or female, she qualified 4th for God's sake... even as a rookie I might add. She gave these guys a run for their money and there is no denying that fact. Give credit where it is due. No band-wagon jumping here, just facts.
Why the hate?? "Some degree of talent" doesn't get you chosen as an Indy car driver. I guess Rahal Letterman put her under contract for short term marketing.
Last time I checked it costs millions upon millions to run these race teams, and as far as I know the goal of racing is to WIN, not just to market an auto marque. "More talk than walk" doesn't yield the results seen today. Tell that to everybody who finished behind her today. A strong team can only get a driver so far, and male or female, she qualified 4th for God's sake... even as a rookie I might add. She gave these guys a run for their money and there is no denying that fact. Give credit where it is due. No band-wagon jumping here, just facts."A good bit of talent" gets you chosen as a CART driver
"A lot of talent" gets you chosen as a F1 testcar driver
"A whole assload of talent" gets you as a "2nd guy" F1 driver
"So much talent that its absolutely ridiculous and you are one of the baddest mfers on the face of the planet" gets you as a lead driver on a good team
This is all relative of course based upon how MANY drivers there are in open-wheeled racing
Its your talent vs everyone elseWhy do you think CART put Juan Pablo Montoya in as a driver for the Indy 500 just to **** IRL off? He won it the year they put him in and then F1 snatched him up
Drivers know where the money is; some of its in NASCAR, but for the truly badass drivers, its in Formula1... Michael Schumacher is the highest paid sportsman in the world... end of discussion
If someone get bored by watching hairpin courses in super fast cars, I dont know how you are stimulated by watching cars drive around in an oval all day.
Last edited by Bean; 05-30-05 at 01:19 AM.
05-30-05, 06:52 AM
#23
Lexus Fanatic
Originally Posted by Bean
I wonder how boring it gets driving around in a circle for 500 laps
.
05-30-05, 06:55 AM
#24
Super Moderator
Originally Posted by mmarshall
Well...you can stop wondering. There is NOTHING boring about pulling 3-4G's in curves like a fighter pilot, being inches away from another speeding car at 200 MPH, going around curves three and four abreast, and having to slow down from 200 MPH to about 60 or so and having to find YOUR pit crew right in the middle of 33 of them that all look exactly alike.
05-30-05, 10:10 AM
#25
Lexus Test Driver
Hey guys, I was actually there at Indy yesterday.
First of all, I'd say that as boring as I find it on TV, it is DEFINITELY not boring when you're sitting along the main straight in front of the finish line and see cars flying past you at 200+ MPH. It's an amazing sight to see and hear.
Danica lost possibly for a couple of reasons, the people I was with had a scanner and were listening to her team's frequency... she was about 1 lap short of fuel (assuming all the remaining laps were under a green flag) and she said her tires were starting to wear and she strarted to lose grip somewhere between lap 190 and 195.
I think she's a pretty talented driver seeing the way she fought her way from 16th (she fell to 16th because of a very long pit stop) back up to 8th. Is she the best? No. Is she (or any other IRL driver) as talented as an F1 driver, no... otherwise she'd probably be in F1, but thats does not mean IRL drivers are untalented. That would just be like saying an E46 M3 is a piece of crap because its not as fast or doesn't handle as well as an Enzo. I'd like to see any one of us here on this board "pilot" one of those cars at 225mph around a track without eating the wall. Just because something isn't the absolute best, it's faulty logic to assume its "bad". As much as i dislike NASCAR, i'll give it up to the fact that those guys do have skills, even if it is just left turns.
And up until this current season, i was VERY bored watching cars go around hairpin turns because the result of every race seemed to be the exact same.... Ferrari at the top.
First of all, I'd say that as boring as I find it on TV, it is DEFINITELY not boring when you're sitting along the main straight in front of the finish line and see cars flying past you at 200+ MPH. It's an amazing sight to see and hear.
Danica lost possibly for a couple of reasons, the people I was with had a scanner and were listening to her team's frequency... she was about 1 lap short of fuel (assuming all the remaining laps were under a green flag) and she said her tires were starting to wear and she strarted to lose grip somewhere between lap 190 and 195.
I think she's a pretty talented driver seeing the way she fought her way from 16th (she fell to 16th because of a very long pit stop) back up to 8th. Is she the best? No. Is she (or any other IRL driver) as talented as an F1 driver, no... otherwise she'd probably be in F1, but thats does not mean IRL drivers are untalented. That would just be like saying an E46 M3 is a piece of crap because its not as fast or doesn't handle as well as an Enzo. I'd like to see any one of us here on this board "pilot" one of those cars at 225mph around a track without eating the wall. Just because something isn't the absolute best, it's faulty logic to assume its "bad". As much as i dislike NASCAR, i'll give it up to the fact that those guys do have skills, even if it is just left turns.
And up until this current season, i was VERY bored watching cars go around hairpin turns because the result of every race seemed to be the exact same.... Ferrari at the top.
Last edited by Faraaz23; 05-30-05 at 10:13 AM.
05-30-05, 01:47 PM
#29
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But you know there are both better looking women and better race drivers out there. I guess we'll agree to disagree!
You call it "hate," I call it a reality check. Everyone's talking about her like she's the next big thing and it really pisses me off because most people who ride her bandwagon haven't sat through a season of F1. If they did, they would realize she isn't a big deal.
05-30-05, 01:47 PM
#30
Originally Posted by mmarshall
Well...you can stop wondering. There is NOTHING boring about pulling 3-4G's in curves like a fighter pilot, being inches away from another speeding car at 200 MPH, going around curves three and four abreast, and having to slow down from 200 MPH to about 60 or so and having to find YOUR pit crew right in the middle of 33 of them that all look exactly alike.
Amd fighter pilots pull a lot more than a measely 3-4Gs, dont even try to compare this ghetto-form of open-wheeled racing to flying in a 30 million dollar jet fighter... it aint gonna happen