Danica Patrick joins NASCAR

Gone are the days of "Gentlemen, start your engines." Those gentlemen will now include a lady, once Danica Patrick is on the scene. Patrick has announced that she will join NASCAR as a full time driver in 2012 in the Nationwide series. She will drive for JR Motorsports, owned by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Patrick will also spend nearly two dozen races behind the wheel of a Sprint Cup car, driving for Stewart-Haas Racing.

It was bound to happen to the male-dominated sport of stock car racing. It is not that there haven't been successful women participating in the sport in the past, because there have. Women have made their mark in race car driving.

In 1949, Sara Christian, the first woman race car driver, posted a fifth-place finish at Pittsburgh, the best finish by a woman in NASCAR history. Christian ran seven races, with her first competition at Charlotte.

But probably the best known woman race car driver was Janet Guthrie, who ran 33 races between 1976 and 1980. Like Patrick, Guthrie was probably better known for driving Indy cars, but she also made a name for herself at NASCAR. She started in the top ten and posted top-ten finishes in the NASCAR’s Winston Cup, which is now the Sprint Cup Series. She finished sixth at Bristol, Tennessee in ‘77, which remains the best by a woman in the recent NASCAR era.

Guthrie is the only woman to take the lead in a Cup race. She was the Top Rookie in five races in her day. She was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2006.

It will be exciting to watch Danica Patrick go the distance with these good ole boys. It might be more fun to watch how they react to it. I believe Patrick is here to stay. She is spunky. She is competitive. And she is qualified. Her presence will undoubtedly beef up the Nationwide Series, which is already, in my opinion, becoming a must watch program.

I’m even more excited to watch her career as a Sprint Cup driver in a Stewart-Haas car. Since I’m a woman, Ryan Newman is my favorite driver, and I happen to have a GoDaddy website (http://www.ozarkattitude.com) this is a tad personal for me. I am really going to enjoy racing in 2012, not that it hasn’t been stellar this year.

With Ryan Newman seventh in points, his racing prowess is becoming obvious to even his staunchest critics. I love saying I told you so to those hard-nose idiots that have long misjudged him. 

Ryan Newman recognized for top performance

Image via Wikipedia

It is so refreshing to see Ryan Newman get the recognition he deserves. 

In a press release yesterday, NASCAR.com announced that Newman and the #39 team won two awards following the race at the Michigan International Speedway Sunday.

The DirectTV Crew Chief of the Race award went to Newman's Crew Chief Tony Gibson, for having the lowest average of qualifying result and race finish. Newman qualified fifth and crossed the checkers in fifth as well.

Newman won the Mobile1 Driver of the Race award, for having the best finish of eligible Mobile 1 drivers.

The release also quoted Newman's second engineer, Wes Gantt. 

Gantt remarked that Newman's engineering background helps the team because he is able to "look at data and interpret it."

In other news, just today, Speedtv.com noted that Ryan Newman has earned more points than any other Sprint Cup driver in the last five races. He has earned 187 points, just ahead of Jeff Gordon, with 186 and Jimmie Johnson with 184.

An article on their website calls Newman, the "hottest driver on the circuit at the moment." They say that fact might surprise a few people.

Consider me not among them. I am surprised when Newman has an off day. I have long considered him to be championship material. He is a hell of a driver, but has a bad relationship with Lady Luck. It is my opinion that once Newman learns to tame her, there will be no stopping the Rocketman.

Newman feels at home at Michigan

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe Michigan International Speedway is special to Ryan Newman, so it is especially good to see him run well there. He certainly did that—grabbing a fifth place starting spot and finishing fifth, with lots of good runs in between.


There is no doubt about it—when your favorite driver has a good day, and especially a good finish, it makes racing really fun to watch. Needless to say I enjoyed this week’s Michigan race. Newman climbed to seventh in points with only three races to go before the Chase for the Championship begins.


It is clear that Newman and his team are giving it everything they’ve got. I can’t quite put my finger on it, or can I recall just when it happened, but early in this season it seems as if something just began to click. The cars seemed to go faster, balance improved, pit stops became competitive again, and the entire team seemed to come together.


Newman has won and lost at Michigan, where he holds the track record. He made it around the two-mile oval in 194.232 seconds during a qualifying lap in 2005.


A respectable fifth place finish can certainly earn Newman bragging rights as well. That is just the way it should be too, since this track is one he considers his home track. His father Greg brought him to the races when he was growing up. It isn’t far from where they lived in South Bend, IN. No doubt Newman dreamed of wheeling his own race car around it.


An avid fisherman, Newman has donated to youth camps and provided scholarships for kids. He never forgot learning to fish there with his grandfather. He’d like other kids to grow up with the same experience.


Perhaps the biggest proof of Newman’s devotion to the Michigan International Speedway, in Brooklyn, MI, is that he and his wife Krissie named their daughter Brooklyn.

Keeping an eye on Justin Allgaier

I am really impressed with Justin Allgaier in NASCAR's Nationwide Series. I believe he will make that series well worth watching for the remainder of this season.  

Allgaier fought a loose race car, but wheeled his 16th place start into a 4th place finish. Allgaier is fourth in the points standings. 

This young man with an impressive resume; complete with results to back it up, is an Illinois native. He caught my eye while he began driving for Penske Racing in 2008. 

Allgaier seemed a natural fit for my liking, since he drove the #12 for Penske, the car formerly driven by my favorite Sprint Cup driver, Ryan Newman. 

Newman drove the #12 Alltel Dodge sponsored by Alltel, until Alltel was taken over by Verizon. Newman left Penske and joined Stewart-Haas Racing. The #12 Alltel Dodge was replaced by the #12 Verizon Dodge, driven by  Allgaier.

Allgaier drove full time in the Nationwide series, which was a first for Penske. 

In the cut-throat business/advertising world however, the writing was on the wall for Verizon, in the series named for Sprint. Alltel was permitted to remain a sponsor because it was established prior to Sprint taking over the series. But, once the name was changed, all bets were off. Apparently there is no room for competition in the world of cellular service, so Verizon pulled its sponsorship. Allgaier, the 2009 Rookie of the year who won his first race at Bristol in March, 2010, was the victim. 

This year, Allgaier is making the most of the situation as he drives for Turner Motor Sports in the #31 car. 

Related articles

• Justin Allgaier prevails in NASCAR Nationwide (theglobeandmail.com)

Ryan Newman not the cheatin' kind

Ryan Newman was stripped of his win in NASCAR's Whelen Modified Tour at New Hampshire Saturday proving that bad luck continues to follow him. Even when it looks like he has shrugged it off, misfortune always seems to follow.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By reading all accounts of the penalty that took away Newman's fourth consecutive win and grounded car owner Kevin "Bono" Manion from the NWMT series due to unapproved manifold changes resulting in more horsepower, I'm not convinced that Newman knew anything about it. 

A scathing story written by Shawn Courchesne of Courant.com, state that Newman and Manion proved themselves disgraceful thieves to short track racers. I can't speak for Manion because I have not followed his career, but I have followed Newman's. 

I see no indication, let alone proof that Newman knew anything about an unapproved intake manifold on Manion's car. While Newman has earned an engineering degree at college, all that means is that he can understand what occurred. But, he is not the engineer or crew chief of that car. There is no indication that he knew anything about what was under the hood of that race car. He is the driver. All he cared about was that it responded when he gave it the gas.

What has been proven is Newman's sincerity. I will never believe that he would intentionally cheat to win a race. I must take issue with Courchesne for his criticism of Newman's intentions and respect for the NWMT series in particular and short-track racing in general. 

To me, this is just another stroke of Newman's bad luck. Someone tampered with the car to purposefully make it beat the competition. I do not believe it was Newman.