Monday, May 30, 2005

Perpendicular to the Cement

Danica Patrick is awesome!

Slice:

INDIANAPOLIS — Danica Patrick didn't win the Indianapolis 500 Sunday but, gosh, as she would say, she sure dominated it.

Just as she had dominated nearly a month's worth of practice as an Indy rookie. Just as she had stolen the show with a near miss on pole-qualifying day.

This time, though, everything was for real. This wasn't practice. This wasn't four laps of qualifying, with nobody else on the track.

This was the race, 500 miles, 200 laps around the old 2 1/2 -mile brickyard, where for years, men were men and women weren't welcome. This time, she was out there with 32 other cars, before more than 300,000 fans.

And at one stage late in the race, as she led — only one woman had ever led before, Patrick, earlier in the race — after having battled back from 16th place, she had nearly every one of them standing, cheering, waving, urging her on to what would have been the most revolutionary victory in American sports history.

As TV star David Letterman, one of her team's co-owners, pointed out, "She had the thing perpendicular to the cement and still had a chance to win."

2 comments:

Phil said...

Was kick arse to see her do well. First woman to lead in the Indy 500, real shot at the win, 4th place finish, and this after a couple misteps that easily could have put her out of contention. She's got serious talent. Her performance was incredible for a rookie. And she's damn cute too :)

Anonymous said...


The real deal

Rahal-Letterman can hardly believe their good fortune.

A lot of what happens at Indy depends on the car. Remember when Roger Penske's (his own design) cars couldn't qualify. Apparently they were unstable at speed and scared the drivers.

As for Patrick herself, in a later TV appearance she talked about cars. She's car smart like Mario Andretti who once intimated that he would run over his grandmother to win.