Just for this, go Danica Patrick:
Robby Gordon accused Danica Patrick of having an unfair advantage in the Indianapolis 500 and said Saturday he will not compete in the race again unless the field is equalized.
Gordon, a former open-wheel driver now in NASCAR, contends that Patrick is at an advantage over the rest of the competitors because she only weighs 100 pounds. Because all the cars weigh the same, Patrick's is lighter on the race track.
"The lighter the car, the faster it goes," Gordon said. "Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier.
"I won't race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away."
The IndyCar Series does not consider the weight of the driver in its race specifications. The car has to weigh at least 1,525 pounds before the fuel and driver are added, and teams in Indy have estimated that Patrick will gain close to 1 mph in speed because of her small stature.
Shut up and drive, Robby.
(Via Fark.)
Posted by floridacracker at May 28, 2005 11:37 PMOh boo hoo! If he wants to make this argument let's have all the drivers weigh in before the race. What about when the owners start to decide that some drivers need to lose weight? Eventually the race care drivers will look like horse jockeys.
Idiot.
Posted by: Janette at May 29, 2005 02:41 PMDanica Patrick is going to be as bad for IndyCar racing as Shirley Muldowney was for the NHRA. Don Garlits knew what he was doing when he vouched for Muldowney. Good on Rahal and Letterman for letting this girl's talent come to the fore. An amazing race given all the attention she got as a rookie and a woman.
BTW, Heart Like A Wheel, the bio picture of Muldowney, starring Bonnie Bedelia and Beau Bridges, is my idea of a feminist movie.
chuckR
Posted by: chuckR at May 30, 2005 12:53 PMAs bad or as good, Chuck?
Yeah, Janette, the concensus seems to be that Robby Gordon is a fool.
Posted by: Donnah at May 30, 2005 11:11 PMDonnah
Patricks' participation is 'bad' as in very good.
By some accounts Indy viewership was up 40%.
Racing needs sponsors, sponsors need fans, fans need people who are more than just exceptional driving technicians.
NASCAR knows it, Indy used to with Mario, A.J. and Parnelli and the (older) Unsers.
And she's not a gimmick - a smidge better fuel economy and she might have taken it all. People will pay attention to a gimmick once. Competitive, personable and attractive - she certainly has the potential to help racing.
chuckR
Posted by: chuckR at May 31, 2005 09:18 AMHey it's great to have a woman driver doing so well, but I agree with Gordon that the race should be fair. If weighing a lot less makes a difference, then cars should have weight added so that the weight of the driver is not a consideration. Otherwise, what we'll be hearing is that Danica only wins because she is lighter than the other drivers. That would be a disservice to her, if in fact she actually is the better driver. I would think that she, especially, would want the races to be entirely fair so that no one can take anything away from her successes.
Posted by: MarkJ at May 31, 2005 04:06 PM