NASCAR running thread

Well said.

 

That's surprising as well. I always though the strength of most open wheel drivers, especially when they went over to NASCAR, were road courses. Like Tony Stewart or Pablo Montoya.

I really thought IndyCar was a stronger format for her skills. You don't have to manhandle one of those featherweight rockets like you do a stock car. They require a lot more finesse and she's got excellent skills, especially on ovals. I thought after her win, she'd be off and running in open wheels. But for whatever reason, despite having some of the series' best cars, she couldn't pull it off.

I agree she gets too much credit and too much blame, kind of like a quarterback. But I think her high profile with those sexy GoDaddy commercials makes her more of a target of derision than anything. I think her attitude gets her a lot of negative attention as well. She's had run-ins with her own pit crew, both in IndyCar and in the Nationwide series. The radio of her whining about her car to the JR Motorsports folks is priceless. I don't blame her for having run-ins with other drivers (totally understandable), but if you have a problem with your crew and/or crew chief, keep it behind closed doors in the hauler.

For one, I hope she wins Sunday. I'd like to see it, it'd be historic and it would forever put to rest the argument that the only reason she's behind the wheel is her sponsor and sex appeal. It'd show the world that she really is one of the best race car drivers in the world. The pole at Daytona shows that her adjustment period with stock cars is starting to pay off.
The key is how she handles the draft. Thursday's Duels should show how well or how badly these new cars handle in a draft. I think they'll be much better than the bricks the Series used before. They were terrible in a draft and just awful on the eyes. NASCAR made a great move giving the brands some differentiation. The SS looks particularly nice.

 

Stewart may have come from open wheel, but he was a ovals (sprint car) guy before making the move.

 

Hell no. That's the last thing we need. If you know anything about racing, winning at Daytona (or Talladega) doesn't mean shit in terms of our driving ability. It means you were in the right place at the right time and got lucky on the day. It doesn't matter whether it's Danica or any other winner in the last 24 years, winning a plate race involves a whole lot of fortune. FACT. The last thing we need is her winning a crap shoot race and having even more people think it means something. Winning Daytona is still THE race a driver wants to win, but it doesn't make or break you in terms of ability.

 

No, Shoeless Joe, but it does make you immortal. Would Derrik Cope ever be mentioned without that win? And yet his name comes up often.

BTW, has anyone ever considered that being a below-average IndyCar driver on road and street courses may make you an above-average NASCAR driver on the two road courses? I certainly have.

 

Did you actually watch the races those two seasons, or did you just look up the stats? Fact is, she didn't contend for wins in any of those races. And five top-10s in a series comprised heavily of road/street courses with usually about 24 or so cars? Sorry, but that's not strong, especially when you're with one of the top-three teams in the series. And of those top-10 finishes, how many were top-5 runs? The answer is zero. How many laps did she lead? Three, at Mid-Ohio in 2011. She often put in serviceable runs and usually kept the car in one piece, but she seemed much more comfortable (and competitive) on the ovals.

 

That's exactly my point. Winning Daytona makes you immortal. It doesn't automatically mean you are a race car driver. It would just be more undeserved hype piled on top of what she already gets.

 

It makes you immortal but bears no relation to your skill?

Some pretty selective Plate Age reasoning being applied here, whether we're talking about Dale Earnhardt or Michael Waltrip or Trevor Bayne.

 

Again, my point. Winning Daytona is a crap shoot. It does not reflect your ability. If Danica wins, that means she would have the same number of Daytona 500 wins as David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt, A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. I'm pretty sure she isn't in any conversation about those immortals.

 

YOU WILL NOT BESMIRCH THE GOOD NAME OF TREVOR BAYNE.

 

And again, my point is that almost no one said this of Trevor Bayne. No one said it about Michael Waltrip. And the opposite was said when Earnhardt finally won it.

 

I am so in hopes that Bayne finally starts doing something. His win had me fired up more than any race since Davey Allison was killed. Not only was he a Southerner but a guy from Tennessee driving a Ford no less, my love of the sport was renewed.