Here comes Danica

ThatsRacin.com has a blog post from Cup/Nationwide crew member Dennis Terry, who's going to be part of the over-the-wall crew for Danica Patrick's Nationwide team. Terry gives his take on Patrick's performance in her ARCA start last weekend, calling her "a racer first and a celebrity second."

Personally, I've been ambivalent about Patrick in the past. I was a little dubious when she started talking about racing in NASCAR (for one thing, Indy car drivers don't have the best track record in stock cars), but I thought she equipped herself well in the ARCA race. Those GoDaddy.com commercials still make me want to punch someone in the face, though.

On a related note, the comments on the Winston-Salem Journal article announcing that Patrick would appear in the Nationwide race at Daytona reached new depths of ignorance, even by the standards of the Journal.com comments section. There's a whole mess of stupid happening here:

- Posted by (jonnrad) on 02/08/2010 at 01:23 pm.
Women are long overdue in the premier NASCAR series. No reason a woman can't drive as well as the men.
(Me: Duh, but, sadly, this did need to be pointed out.)

- Posted by (nra_4ever) on 02/08/2010 at 02:24 pm.
have you ever been in a car with a woman driving?
(Me: fuck you.)

- Posted by (FlipperTheFloggedDolphin) on 02/08/2010 at 03:10 pm.
What's next?? An Asian driver????
(Why the hell not? If he/she can race, who cares about ethnicity? Oh, yeah, asshole racists like you.)

- Posted by (staballoy) on 02/08/2010 at 03:36 pm.
More effective would be to have a man drive and Ms. Patrick sit in the passenger's seat furnishing directions and opinions. He'd be so eager to get where he's going, they'd win handily.
(You know what would be hilarious? If you said that to Patrick's face. I might actually pay the ridiculous ticket prices to see that one.)

- Posted by (usmc65) on 02/08/2010 at 03:41 pm.
I hope the uniform doesn't make her a$$ look big.
(Wow, you are so witty! 'Cause Patrick's a girl, and girls only care about appearances, and we'd rather die than look fat. I'm totally sure that's the A-number one thing on Patrick's mind right now. Asshole.)

-Posted by (pigpen) on 02/08/2010 at 03:47 pm.
Great ! Go Daddy Go!
(See what I mean, Danica? This madness must stop. No one calls your boss "the Amp guy.")

- Posted by (JUSTOPINION) on 02/08/2010 at 03:49 pm.
Have seen alot of racing and she deserves a chance. If you need convincing, watch the replay of her saving her spin. Not that I am a expert, but listen to the commentary from the announcers and watch how calm she was. Then she drove back to the front. Why not pick apart Ricky Carmichael. He made his living on 2 wheels. He finished right beside her.
(Wow, a normal person. Clearly a plant.)

-Posted by (bigdeacon) on 02/08/2010 at 09:51 pm.
It makes sense. Women are generally smaller so that reduces the weight of the car and results in higher speeds and better fuel efficiency. More power to her.
(Aw, this one's hard, 'cause this person is clearly trying to be magnanimous... But NASCAR has weight guidelines. Every car, including driver, weighs the same. They add weight to cars to make up differences between the drivers' weights. So, thanks for the generally positive comment, but you're still kind of clueless... Or I could be wrong. Goodness knows NASCAR's changed every other rule in the book, so they might have ditched the weight thing, too, for all I know.)