Just make the car go fast...

Ok, this annoys the shit out of me.

I'm kind of a car racing nut. I'm the kind of person that goes to hot, dusty tracks in the summer and watches no-name folks race cars at what is pretty much their own expense. I can spend hours listening to some desk-jocky talk about how he pop-rvieted in a new floor after work on weekdays, or some mom talk about having her husband and son wrench so she can race on the weekends. I don't memorize names and stats, or anything like that, but I'm goofy over things going fast, and will pause to watch almost any form of racing I run accross. (I'm watching World Rally as I type.)

I few months ago, someone made a semi-public statement to the affect of, "We all have to watch the Indy 500! We have a woman driver! Yeah!" I heard her continue to rant and rave about this for days, although I have never known this person to have the slightest interest in sports before, whether, male, female, canine, equine... well, you get it, right?

Now, I nearly gagged on this the first time. I am pretty fucking sure the person spouting off knew absolutely dick, probably less than dick, about racing. I also know that Danica Patrick is a lovely piece of eye-candy, and promoted as such, regardless of her driving talent, and that she is NOT the first woman to run Indy, and, if you do a little research, not the most impressive. She is a talented driver that was/is the answer to Indy's prayers. Until she came along, viewership was way down. Guess which demographic rocketed up when she came on the scene? (That's right, men age 15-35. And yes, I'm guilty, I tuned in to rubberneck that accident too.)

I tried to ignore the diatribes of all the people running their mouths about Danica at Indy, and I tried not to hold it against her. She is a serious race car driver, and (one thing I love about racing) numbers don't lie. She is damn fast, as well as being wicked hot. So, when all the "feminists" decided to take a sudden interest in car racing, I bit my tongue, and I agreed, "You're right, it's not about her looks, it's not a marketing ploy, she's there as a serious driver." I even tried to believe it, which is more than I do for most things.

Then, I saw the add tonight for the first time. Danica, in a skimpy black dress, hair blown by some magical breeze, doing her best supermodel thing, hucking... anti-freeze? I think that's what she was dancing with... anti-freeze... or something... plus boobs and her hair... yeah, that was it, boobs, hair, anti-freeze. Really sexy anti-freeze... Excuse me, I need to do car maintenance now...

So I'm going to say what I should have said then... What a load of horse shit!

The next time some fool says something about Danica Patrick forwarding women in the world, I am going to forward them a link to this site on Janet Guthrie. She's not too sexy, but she was the first woman to earn a spot in the Indy 500. Also in the Daytona 500, the same year, where she was rookie of the year. In 1978, she came back to Indy and placed a very respectable 9th, with a team she had formed and managed herself. She raced and placed in Indy and NASCAR's Winston Cup, the two top forms of racing in her era. Oh, and she was also a flight instructor and aerospace engineer, and holds a degree in Physics from my beloved University of Michigan. Hmm, maybe she is kinda sexy after all...?

I have nothing against Danica Patrick. She's a great driver, and a real hottie, and I guess if she wants to hock anti-freeze with her looks to add to her bank, good for her. Hell, no one wants to pay me to do a sexy anti-freeze dance in a black dress, or I would too. I'm all for people pimpin' themselves out if that's their thing.

But if folks want role models, I'd start with Janet Guthrie. Or do what I did when the whole "Danica Patrick thing" started to bug me: stop listening to marketing and google around. There are a ton of women in racing who aren't marketed as the "hot girl driver." Lots aren't even marketed as "girl drivers." I've watched races where all the drivers were called by their last names, and only after they pulled their helmets off did I even know any were women. They didn't do sexy anti-freeze dances, but they still made me nutty, just because they made the cars go fast.