Danica Closer to AGR deal

And this just in from ESPN:

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HAMPTON, Ga. -- Danica Patrick will "all but certainly" be in NASCAR in 2010, but won't give up Indy car racing and will limit next year's activity to the Nationwide Series and Trucks, according to a source very close to the situation.

Tony Stewart is the "star candidate" to be her partner and mentor in NASCAR, the source said, adding that Patrick's recent visits to Stewart-Haas Racing were much more than social -- that she and Stewart were discussing a deal, and are close to one.

"I can pretty much guarantee at some point she's going to be over here," Stewart told reporters Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, meaning NASCAR in general and hinting at something the source confirmed and clarified.

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http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar...ory?id=4449524

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

PS...it is about time serious race fans of the IRL realize we need her marketability and ability to draw in non-race fans as a known name. WE all know her talents are limited, and while she can put the pedal down on ovals when the setup is right, and she isn't a menace to her competitors; she is a competant driver, nothing more. To spend 10 posts arguing about her poles and accomplishments just reinforced the fact she is just ok. That said, she is more valuable to us than she is to NASCAR, and whether she likes it or not, she hasn't a prayer in NASCAR.

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The fact there are so many posts about her is a result of the fact media plays her hype up to mid-level fans and those that doen't know any different. And we real race fans with knowledge realize she's a joke. As I said before, when she came to RLR, I truly wanted her to succeed and be the real deal. Sadly she's just a side show and to me it is inexplicable as to how a mid to back pack driver can continue to get this much exposure...I guess I just add to it so maybe I'm the entire reason she's even still in a ride.

Frankly, she has been good for fans/exposure in the past but what are "we" really getting out of her? As stated, she doesn't fill up the stands, she doesn't improve the TV ratings, and the followers she does have really don't amount to much worth anyway. If a fan has nothing to contribute except worship of a joke of a driver then said person isn't really a fan in my opinion. I'm telling everybody...she's Ed Carpenter in a chick suit!! (Except I must say I think Ed can outdrive her on ovals...he didn't lift 1 time in Kentucky and Danica would NEVER have raced that close for any lenght of time).

Oh, and I'm glad to see she's been talked into reality by doing some developmental series to test NASCAR. If she gets a big team to back her, she'll qualify but she won't race for squat. Her NASCAR experiment will be over faster than you can possibly imagine. With all that talent she relys on in Indycars, how will her performances decline....especially now that she's not in a contract year? Lets be real...if she were to start winning races by some strange change of course, you can bet it'll be she's getting something the rest aren't with the IRL's hopes being if she's winning she's staying.

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Originally Posted by TURN3

Sadly she's just a side show and to me it is inexplicable as to how a mid to back pack driver can continue to get this much exposure...

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Because she exposed her butt-crack...

Mark in Oshawa's post is rather sensitive I should say, although I hope irl lose her ASAP simply because I feel what irl needs now really is a really dire situation where those people in the management can actually start thinking of what to do to make this series better to get out of this ongoing decade long slow slide. And also for the good of the long term, irl shouldn't rely on a mid pack female driver with her explicit sexual exposure to attract attentions, that's not what motorsport essentially is and will lead irl nowhere in the long run.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/78364

Last evening I sat and watched both the Nationwide race and the NASCAR Truck race on TV. As I sat there, I tried to picture DP racing in either. She will not run up close and personal on the track with other drivers in the IRL, she gets nervous if anyone runs close to her and usually backs out, she lacks that last 1% of total mental commitment, and this is in the IRL with 20-24 cars and the "room" to spread out. NASCAR Truck qualifies 36, and Nationwide qualifies 43. There's no room, or even potential, for any kind of success for her kind of racing in either tier, let alone Cup. IF she really plans, seriously, to try to make a move to Nationwide, I'm afraid she will be handed her butt in a bag if/when she tries NASCAR. Unfortunately, she will be in the wall so fast it would be a true shame. And there'd be no hissies either - those guys would just laugh in her face. I'm also willing to bet she will not actually appear in a Nationwide race in 2010. She'll do testing for someone, actual results of said testing will not be made public (just like the last time this happened before Atlantics), and after that the whole idea will quietly fade.

When I think about this whole "Danica to NASCAR" thing, I think about all the people who are, or who have been, there, and their carefully worded public statements about Danica in NASCAR. Chip advised her to stay in IRL. Both Dario and JP advised her to stay in the IRL and to think very, very carefully about the NASCAR idea, Penske suggested she stay in the IRL, Sam Hornish stated that the transition is very, very hard, and takes more than one year and a lot of dedication, etc. (If you want links, google them yourself.) It seems like she's going down a list of all these people who can give her rock-solid advice, until she finds one who says what she wants to hear. I know grade-school kids who are more mature than that.

Whatever. She'll do whatever IMG tells her to do, because she really is all about the money. Regardless of what she tells Tony Stewart. If he believes she has that much dedication to go to NASCAR, when she hasn't shown that kind of dedication for ANY other kind of racing she's ever been in, well, shame on Tony. I thought he was smarter than that.

OMG! To prove my previous point in this post, even if you don't use Twitter you can go so a search for @DanicaPatrick. Apparently her "fans" are reading the reports on this wonderful Sunday morning and the tweets prove beyond a reasonable doubt exactly what I've said about the fans she brings being incompetent. Indycar doesn't need the sideshow at the 3 ring circus attention...it needs real fans, real drivers, real racing, real technology, etc. It doesn't need attn from Danica like WWF or WWE. Everybody knows that stuff isn't real, right?

1. I don't think the IRL needs Danica to survive. The series is struggling right now and it has much bigger issues to deal with than, as another poster said, a well known female driver staying or leaving. Does she add a bit to the fanbase? Yes, I'd say the at-track attendance (often casual fans) is boosted a bit by her. But tv ratings won't be affected one-bit, and in the big picture, I don't think it will make all that much difference. 2. I do not think it's entirely fair to speculate how well she will do in NASCAR. Driving an Indy car close to another driver is a lot different than driving a stock car close. If you touch in an Indy car you're toast, if you touch in a stock car, you can often times get away with it. She's aware of this, and I think she'll be less cautious in a stock car. I also think the idea that she'll have difficulty "steering" a stock car is ridiculous, of course they have power steering, unlike Indy cars. Yes, there's a lot of reasons why she might not do well in stock cars, the main one being that she has little to NO experience in them. That's the biggest issue, not her size, her gender, or her driving style in the IRL. I expect her to get top equipment in nwide/trucks in 2010 and to probably just be running laps near the back most of the season. By the time 2011 rolls around and she expects to start running Cup, I think then we'll see whether she's a Hornish/Montoya or comes crawling back to Indycar... My expectations are not high, but I do think it will be interesting to watch.

Since it sounds like The Danica is just dipping her toe in the water, here's where I am. If she actually starts a NASCAR or ARCA race by Daytona, I'll become NASCAR_Warrior for a month. If she starts a stock car race (ANY stock car race) and finishes in the Top 10, where there are at least 25 starters, I'll become NASCAR_Warrior for 3 months. If at anytime during 2010 she starts a NASCAR Sprint Cup race, without having to rely on owner points, I'll be NASCAR_Warrior from that point through the end of the season. If she goes full time Cup by 2011, I will become NASCAR_Warrior for the entire season.

And... if Danica wins a stock car race, ANY stock car race, I'll permanently become NASCAR_Warrior on here. I figure there's better odds that I'll go to Vegas next month with $50 in my wallet and I'll leave with $1 million in my pocket and Salma Hayek on my arm.

Folks here should look at the upside of this. The Truck series gets about 400% higher ratings than the IRL. The Nationwide Series gets about 700% higher ratings than the IRL (on Versus). Since The Danica seems to want to keep her seat warm in the IRL for awhile, maybe some of the fans in those other series might start watching some IRL races.

What will be interesting to watch is how fast THE DANICA brand is history once she's exposed as a complete talentless failure. That can be hidden in the IRL on ovals with cars glued to the ground and less than 10 cars that are somewhat competitive. It has nothing to do with weight or strenght or anything like that like some people have speculated...she'll be fine there, that isn't the problem. The problem is she's not a good race car driver. There isn't much to show an argument to the contrary.