Did You Hear The News?

Did you hear about this?

I mean, this is like, huge!  It’s incredible!  Amazing!

No, this isn’t about the “Who Dat?” nation and the New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl.  Sorry Saints fans, but you’ve already been bumped from the front page.  It was only the biggest win of the biggest game in the long history of the NFL team.  You’ll get over it.  Just win the Super Bowl again next year.  Isn’t it the season of Mardi Gras anyway?

Anyway, this other news is much, much bigger and far more important.

I don’t know if it should even be mentioned here.  This is just simply too astonishing to even mention.

Well, I guess we can take a look at it now.

Brace yourselves for this news.  You better be sitting down.

Ready?

Danica Patrick is going to drive in the Nationwide race at Daytona this Saturday!

According to the correct news reports, Ms. Patrick will be making her NASCAR debut this weekend as opposed to her ARCA race last Saturday.

It was actually sad seeing all of the dumbass TV news reporters proudly talking about Danica Patrick’s NASCAR debut with that single ARCA race (a 6th place finish, by the way).  The local morons were talking about it, and of course, it was also mentioned by the fine reporters at ESPN.

It’s funny, but the last time I checked, ARCA is not affiliated with NASCAR.  The ARCA series uses old NASCAR stock cars, they race in a similar fashion and even at many of the same tracks on the same race weekend, but the two series are not officially connected.  ARCA is a typical stepping stone for those drivers wishing to make the transition to the bigger series.  ARCA and NASCAR are two separate auto racing series.

So, yeah, it was really not much of a surprise seeing a bunch of Danica fanatics talking highly of their favorite eye candy on the track, but they seemed to miss little details like many of them frequently do.  I’m willing to bet that a lot of the Danica fans have only seen the hideously annoying GoDaddy commercials and maybe, just maybe, highlights of her racing late at night on ESPN’s Sportscenter.

Last Saturday’s Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 was nothing more than a short sprint compared to the lengths of many NASCAR Sprint Cup races.  To see Danica Patrick drive a stock car without crashing it wasn’t really that exciting had it not been for the constant jabber of Darrell Waltrip’s commentary.  I swear, if he blabs on and on and on about Danica during any of the NASCAR races, he will destroy the sport! People are only going to take so much of his crap and bending over backwards to compliment every single thing that she did in the stock car.

Was it really that necessary to capture her reaction of taking a drink while the cars were all stopped during the red flag?

I do feel sorry for the other ARCA drivers who had to put up with the giant media spectacle for a driver who was there to just drive a single ARCA race.  The series doesn’t get much attention anyway.  Bobby Gerhart’s victory celebration and post-race interview were downplayed and virtually ignored by the reporters.  They all wanted to get Danica Patrick’s reaction to finishing sixth.

I will give Danica credit for the cool save that she did when her car was forced down into the grass.  As to whether or not she deserved to get forced down is another story.  In the replay, her car had a run and she was making a pass on the inside, making it three-wide, but her car was also angled to the right and towards the other two cars, putting the squeeze on them.  The other drivers are going to get tired of Little Miss Spotlight real quickly, and more racing incidents like this are going to happen until the officials step in and do harsh penalties.

I’ll also give Danica Patrick credit for racing back up to the leaders after the spinning incident.  It takes drafting and raw horsepower to be able to do such a thing at the superspeedway tracks.

So does this mean that Danica will be awesome when competing in the Nationwide series?

Most likely not.

Those NASCAR races are going to be longer and against much tougher opponents.  Crank up the stress and intensity a few more notches when driving a full Sprint Cup schedule.  People have to remember that racing in ARCA is racing against the worst of the worst drivers.  Some of the ARCA drivers have accepted that fate and just make their career at that level, while others use it to gain stock car experience and hopefully one day move up into one of the bigger NASCAR series.

Putting Danica in a single ARCA race and having her finish sixth is virtually meaningless when it comes to the beginning of a career in stock car racing.  All it means is that she can handle an older stock car while racing in a short race against bad opponents.  She still has a very long way to go before becoming a consistently competitive stock car driver in the NASCAR Cup series.

But will we hear her be presented that way?

No way.

Expect the media to go overboard with the Danica coverage this weekend.  You’ll hear about it all day on Saturday, and again, all day on Sunday, even during the Daytona 500.  The race announcers will act like she’s the greatest thing to ever happen to the sport as they compliment and analyze every single thing that she does in preparation for and during Saturday’s race.

Lately, it seems like the best way to watch NASCAR racing is with the TV on mute.

It’ll definitely help this weekend.

Hell, they’ll probably even talk about Danica Patrick during the Olympics.

Don’t expect the incredible media bias for her to improve for a long time.  Ms. Patrick likes the attention and absolutely loves the money it brings in endorsement deals.