Bob Pockrass: Danica Patrick will struggle just like most open-wheel drivers in NASCAR
Danica Patrick appears to be on track to run a limited NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule in 2010. // Chuck Yadmark, NASCAR Scene
It looks as if Danica Patrick is headed to JR Motorsports for a partial Nationwide Series schedule for 2010, and it has created a great debate of how Patrick will do in a Nationwide car.
She’s going to struggle, of course.
Just as former Indianapolis 500 winner and Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya struggled some in his first year of stock cars. Just as three-time IndyCar Series champion Sam Hornish Jr. has struggled. Just as Dario Franchitti, who won the IndyCar Series title this year, did last season in NASCAR.
The cars are too different and the competition too stiff for anyone to just plop themselves in a seat of a Nationwide car and, with no stock-car experience, finish in the top five. It just isn’t going to happen.
It’s going to take time for Patrick to learn how the cars handle in general. It’s going to take time for Patrick to then learn how to make the car go fast – a car that has no telemetry and where the data acquisition is acquired through the seat of her pants. It’s going to take time for Patrick to learn how tracks and cars change through 200-mile and 300-mile races.
So short term, no one – her sponsors, her owners, her crew – should expect her to be tearing through the field. And she’ll probably tear up some equipment.
Long term, could she make a career in stock cars? It’s possible, but again, there’s no guarantee. Just look at Hornish, who dominated the IndyCar Series.
Patrick has won only one race in the IndyCar Series, but she does have talent. She has been considered one of the top female drivers in the motorsports landscape for several years. She was performing well in racing before any of her photo shoots.
The big question for Patrick is whether she really wants to do this full time. It was just a few years ago when she was saying a 36-race schedule might be too many races for her in a season. And this is a different style of racing, one with a lot more rubbing of fenders, one where a little pushing and shoving is necessary on the track. This is a series where there is very little time to regroup, and if things are going sour on the track, a driver can’t remain sour and hope that things get better. The driver has to put the bad weeks – and the good weeks – in the rear-view mirror. And the media focus is much more intense through the entire season than what she’s used to on the open-wheel side of the sport.
The best thing about Patrick coming to the Nationwide Series is that she will bring some much-needed attention to the series. Maybe when people watch her, they will grow to enjoy the racing and the drivers and appreciate the teams (not just the Cup ones) that compete in the series.
NASCAR and its drivers and teams will welcome Danica Patrick. They will welcome her with open arms. Until she’s racing and learning at the same time, a half-second slower than the car coming up from behind her. And then she will get a real welcome to NASCAR. She’ll get pushed out of the way just like anyone else.
