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Danica Patrick First Woman to Win IRL Race

Eric McErlainPosted Apr 20th 2008 11:48AM by Eric McErlain



When I was a kid, and open wheel racing was a much bigger deal than NASCAR, the news of Janet Guthrie qualifying for the 1977 Indy 500 made headlines around the world. And now, a little less than 31 years later, the road that began when Guthrie qualified for the first of three Indy 500s has ended in Japan, as Danica Patrick became the first woman to ever win an Indy Car race as she won the Japan Indy 500 while most of America were asleep in their beds.

And if Patrick looks a little smug in that photo, I say good for her. She earned it.

But before we talk about the history, we ought to acknowledge what a big deal this is for Patrick personally. This is the fourth season that Patrick has raced in IRL, and her second with the top team on the circuit, Andretti Green. After all this time, the one knock on Patrick was that despite all of the hype that accompanied her arrival in IRL in 2005, she had never won a race, with her previous top finish being second at the Detroit Indy Grand Prix last season.

Some had even taken to referring to her as the Anna Kournikova of auto racing. Now that monkey is off her back forever. Even better, she managed to win even after IRL instituted a rule requiring the minimum weight requirement of the car to include the weight of the driver -- a change that was made after a couple of years of complaining by other teams that Patrick had an advantage because she was so light.

Now for the history. I'm sure Patrick would admit that she's an unlikely, and perhaps reluctant, feminist icon. In fact, she's gone to great pains to say that she's just another driver, and even held back in 2005 when F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone let loose with a fusillade of stupidity about women drivers. Though she could have busted out the whooping stick on Ecclestone, Patrick kept her cool and simply expressed bemusement, which was far better than the F1 czar deserved.

Then again, the fact that she has dived right into an endorsement deal with Go Daddy and taken part in a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot has rankled more than a few folks too.



One thing is for sure, now that Patrick has won a race, IRL is sure to crank up the hype machine ahead of the Indy 500. In two more tries at Indy since the fourth place finish in 2005 where she led for 19 laps, she has finished in 8th twice. If anything, the greatest regret the circuit probably has right now is that Patrick's win had to come on the circuit's one stop in Japan, where the race could never draw a large North American television audience.

Finally, now that she's won a race, one wonders just how much longer it will be before Patrick says goodbye to IRL, and takes a hard look at NASCAR. As well as she's done sponsor-wise in IRL, there's little doubt in my mind that a hop with a NASCAR team would be far more lucrative, a move that many of her former IRL confederates like Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish, Jr., have already made.

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