Dec 14, 2009

Danica’s Move Is Cagey, But …

So the other racing shoe has finally dropped, and Danica Patrick -- the first lady of auto racing -- has decided to go NASCAR racing. 

As we have chronicled here previously, by making this move she will be attempting to make a transition that proved difficult to impossible for top open-wheel drivers like Dario Franchitti, Sam Hornish Jr., A.J. Allmendinger and Juan Pablo Montoya. Hornish, Allmendinger and Montoya all drove in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series this past season with only indifferent results, despite the fact that all are acknowledged open-wheel stars, and Franchitti’s lone season in Sprint Cup was so disastrous that he immediately high-tailed it back into open wheel. 

Which begs the question: Can Danica accomplish what these fine race drivers have been unable to accomplish?

Frankly, we may never get a chance to find out. Danica and her handlers have decided that rather than jumping into the deep end of the pool with their miniskirts on, they will hedge their bets. So Danica will continue to drive in the IndyCar series, where she is a certified star despite having won just a single race, while dipping her comely big toe into the NASCAR Nationwide series, a step below the Sprint Cup series. It is likely her move into Nationwide will occur before the IndyCar season starts and conclude after the IndyCar season ends. So she can continue to headline for IndyCar, while getting a taste of what it’s like to drive a big, bad NASCAR-style racing machine.

That’s why we think we might never get a chance to see if she can succeed in Sprint Cup racing. Given the recent experience of other open-wheel racing stars, Danica might find the transition to NASCAR racing just too difficult. If she has indifferent results in the Nationwide series, she certainly won’t be able to point the finger at her race team, since she’ll be driving for one of the best in the business, JR Motorsports, and veteran Tony Eury Jr. will be her crew chief. That means success or failure will fall heavily on her shoulders, and a series of so-so results would likely influence her to return to open-wheel racing before she even tries her hand at Sprint Cup.

While the toe-dip into Nationwide might seem like a canny strategy, it might backfire. Trying to get proficient behind the wheel of one type of race car is difficult enough, but trying to turn the trick in two very different types in the same season is more than doubly difficult. So by hedging her bets, Danica might be ensuring that she’ll have mixed results in both series.