Whitlock nails Danica Patrick

You wear insincere self-deprecation like you would spandex.

 

Oh, I can't breathe. That was good.

 

Well-played, sir.

 

Damn, should I believe some anonymous poster or a woman willing to sign her name to her comments?....I don't have many of the e-mails I received in response to this column, but "sportschick" I thought you might enjoy this one. It's embarrassing how little of the commentary you can take seriously on this board because people let their little pet peeves interfere with their opinions. Hate the game, not the playa.

Jason –
I used to be the director of motorsports for Allied-Signal (Paul Newman drove for us as part of our Fram Autolite team on the SCCA Trans Am Series) and later the director or marketing at Memphis International Motorsports Park. I wanted you to know my credentials before I said this:
Your article on Danica Patrick and why she should NOT go to NASCAR and what’s going on in the back draft (using the jump to orchestrate a move to Ganassi or Penske) was nothing short of brilliant and the best piece of racing writing I’ve read in the last 10 years. Keep it coming.
Kim
P.S. Target should be salivating after reading this…

----
L. Kim Kimbrough
Senior Copywriter
Signature Advertising, LLC
1755 Kirby Pkwy # 200
Memphis, TN 38120


Obviously the woman goes way overboard or she's never read Robin Miller, David Poole or the people who really know racing. But I'll still take her word over "sportschick."

 

Overrating comments from people who are (supposedly) attaching their names to them is way overrated.

 

Yes, because the opinion of a senior copywriter for an advertising agency in Memphis should be highly valued over serious NASCAR writers such as Jeff Gluck, et al. Spare me, J-Dub. Give us a little more credit than that. :

And you still haven't responded to the original question ...

 

Footnote: Jason Whitlock is the same person who last year wrote Tom Sneva would have been a legend if he had ever had good equipment, ignoring the fact his career began with *PENSKE* before he was canned for not winning enough.  Then he won Indy for George Bignotti, who was not exactly operating on a shoestring either (a full Texaco sponsorship).  Four times Sneva had a car that qualified fastest at Indy.  But apparently that's not good equipment.

And just last year, Danica had great equipment.  But now, according to Whitlock, she's gotta leave RLR.

Although I agree with the premise of his latest column that Danica should not go to NASCAR, the idea that in order to succeed she has to leave RLR for Penske or Ganassi is silly.  RLR is not having a good year, but all teams have down years, even Penske.  Hell, it was AGR that won the last two titles, not Penske or Ganassi.

 

footnote: i wrote..."that if sneva and gordon johncock had johnny rutherford's backing, they'd have won four or five indy 500s."


it was in the middle of a paragraph of me reflecting on my childhood spent rooting for sneva and johncock and hating rutherford.

carry on.

 

It's pretty clear that only someone as ridiculously self-absorbed as Whitlock would post his fan mail at this site.

Unbelievable.

 

thanks, lee. appreciate the kind words.

 

Still haven't answered the question about Junior ...

 

Let's clear something up here. Despite the very kind words, I'm sorry to say that I am not a well-respected NASCAR writer or even a full-time NASCAR writer. I cover motorsports on the side, follow it very closely, but I only go to about 6-8 Cup races per year (out of 36).

All I was saying is that from my personal experience and observations, which spans all of about 25-30 Cup races total, I hadn't seen or heard any resentment in the garage toward Dale Jr.

In the drivers' meetings, Dale Jr. interacts easily with others like Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth. They all seem to get along very well. They joke, slap each other on the back, etc. Other drivers seem to gravitate to Dale Jr. because he is an authentic personality, is extremely humble given his place in the sport and doesn't do much to offend anyone.

From what I've heard -- and it's possible I'm wrong about this -- the drivers that are widely disliked in the garage area include the Busch brothers and that might be the end of the list. I don't know how popular Michael Waltrip is, either. But I hadn't heard anything about drivers hating Dale Jr. before this thread. Whitlock said he's spoken to people in the know, so he probably has more information than I do.

That's it.