stockboost

She is exactly what the series needs.

David Ray

She only lost this race by a mere 10" - had she beaten Walden to the yard of bricks. It was history in the making! Any woman (or Man) for that matter that can run 500 miles at 220+ mph is very talented. I see AX'ers freaking out about 40 mph. She deserves to be there.

Benton

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what she DID NOT want? On the restart, did you see the awesome draft she got to pass Wheldon? He would have done that to her had she been in the lead, then just dropped back quicker.

penguinking

yeah. andretti was asked that question, and he said he would have rather been in second because second place gets the draft on first on the restart. so she was actually in the better position (why she got past him)

tdf360

One thing I wondered about Danica (and I thought it was a most impressive Indy debut) was the amount of hand movement when we saw in-car shots. Either the car was set up differently, or it's her style, but her hands were way more "active" than most of the other drivers.

Gary

Evan70

That would definitely be the car setup. The question is whether they were fighting with getting it setup just right all day, or whether she likes it "twitchy".

aubreym

Did you notice how strongly she moves the wheel when she turns in? It's a very rapid, forceful movement, almost a jerk. I flinched everytime she did it.

Geo

Something to ponder about her debute at Indy that I posted on the 944 forum.....

Al Unser Jr and Michael Andretti had more handed and offered to them when they were starting out because of their famous names, yet neither of them did nearly as well in their rookie Indy 500.

Now, you might say (and correctly so) that the talent pool in the IRL is deluted, but Penske, long the yardstick at the brickyard, was there and she beat them.....

JCP911S

Talent pool in the top 3rd of the grid is as good as it ever was.... too bad there are not more US drivers, though... 10 years ago the top NASCAR guys such as J Gordon, Kenseth, Johnson, etc coming out of the sprint car ranks would have gone into open wheels... that would have been fun.... but the Europeans and S. Americans are just as good.

Geo

Jeff Gordon came out of the sprint car ranks much longer than 10 years ago.

About 40 years ago the sprint car guys would go to Indy Cars. I actually at one time knew some folks from the supermodified ranks that went to Indy as a team/driver combo in the 80s. They were quite successful in the supermodifieds, but couldn't do much with the much higher technology cars at Indy.

The fact is that since the ground effects era, sprint and midget drivers just aren't being exposed to the proper technology to move to Indy Cars or Champ Cars. I'm not saying ground effects are the reason, but that is when technology started really heavily diverging and advancing.

Larry Herman

George, don't you think that is was pretty much when the Indy cars changed from front-engined roadsters to rear-engined cars that the driver path changed. The old roadsters still drifted around the corners, even on asphalt. The rear-engined cars were totally different, requiring precision steering, and more akin to what sports car drivers were used to. The old "king of the dirt" had nowhere to move up to anymore.

trumperZ06

Yep Larry, it was the " English Invasion" started by Graham Hill I believe with their mid-engined cars !!!

After Jimmy Clark/Lotus came to Indy using a competitive Ford engine... they won wih their second attempt as I recall, there was a change-over to mid engine designs.

That was the beginning of the end to the roadsters... which is now being resurrected by NASA... see Jeff Curtis for additional info !!!

Geo

Larry, I'd agree that was the beginning of the end, but through the 70s there were still a lot of guys who came out of ovals and of course Rick Mears came out of no where (off-road, go figure). I don't think that ground effects is what actually pretty well put and end to sprint and midget drivers at Indy, but around that time (and partly because of ground effects) the traditional short track oval drivers were pretty much history, although there were exceptions. It pains me that I cannot remember for the life of me the great midget driver that was killed at Indy in the late 80s, early 90s. Hell, I can picture him, but can't remember his name.

Interesting note about Rick Mears. I read something about why when he burst onto the scene he was so much better than the others, or at least what his unfair advantage was.... Dampers. You see, at the time he came along, teams were pretty ignorant about dampers. But in off-road, where Mears came from, they were a huge deal. So, he really worked on his dampers and eventually convinced Penske to build his own.

macnewma

From being at the race, my opinion is that she drove a very good race but that her 4th place finish was in large part attributable to some very fortunate yellows. I don't think it takes away from her drive as that is all a part of racing in the same way Hornish and Junquiera got screwed by poor drivers.

I also don't think the weight advantage can be discounted. Robby Gordon's fat *** (and maverick attitude to racing) aside, it was as significant advantage. I saw her 50lb weight advantage as equivalent to about 8-10 gallons of fuel or equal to the difference between race and qualifying trim. It is estimated to make about a .5-1" difference per lap at Indy. You could actually see her pull on the straights and the short chutes. Even against Wheldon at the end.

I actually had a non-race fan friend ask me about Danica's weight advantage last week. I dismissed it because I assumed the IRL used ballast like every major race org (even local karting!). I think the use of ballast is necessary unless they want to develop a group of bulimic racers or a bunch of Mini-Schumi's.

Concerning the Foyt's, I think it is pathetic that they are even allowed to race at that level. If you thought their performances at Indy were bad, you should have seen AJ IV's very short run at St Pete earlier this year. He didn't even know he was closing the door on Castroneves while being lapped. You could see that it surprised the hell out of him when he took Helio out. Before I even knew who it was, I said "Only Foyt could pull that". He should go to NASCAR where that kind of idiocy just blends in.

Finally, someone needs to recognize that Dan Wheldon not only put together a spectacular race, but one helluva year. You could see he was head and shoulders above the rest of the pack as he methodically moved up. Those last laps that he turned against Patrick and the rest were on the absolute edge. I could see that he was using probably 2-3 more feet on the inside of the turns than the rest of the field towards the end. This kid is no joke.

DGaunt

The fact that Danica is covered as a woman first and a talented racer second reminds me of how little progress has been made getting women and visible minorities into the sport.

Also, it reminds me of how Shirley Muldowney, in spite 0of her great talent in running a team, setting a car up, and getting sposors, was forced into pink hot pants to race. One would think those days were over.