Even that was only fuel mileage and not pure speed, not to mention the fact it was a depleted field with all the ex-CART guys running Long Beach.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodster
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Even that was only fuel mileage and not pure speed, not to mention the fact it was a depleted field with all the ex-CART guys running Long Beach.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodster
I believe she can drive but I do not view her as a racer at this time. I thought I specified that, my bad if i did not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotty G.
I found it interesting that when I asked drivers last year to rank the top ten they drive against, she failed to make the list. That says a lot.
Since I know them both, I feel I can provide a fair evaluation. The more I think about it, the more the comparison fits.Quote:
Originally Posted by beachbum
Both had talent, both drove for capable teams, with good engineering resources. Both were distracted by by things outside of racing. Both enjoyed the night life to the fullest.
Danica changed a bit when she got married, but the focus is 95% on her "brand", 5% driving. Christian won late in his career, after he settled down a bit.
Fair enough. Obviously, I don't know either driver but that fits with what has been written or hinted about both.Quote:
Originally Posted by EagleEye
But that still goes to imply the notion Danica has "talent" is true. I think that is a compliment paid by a person trying very generous and compasionate. To add to my previous point...she came to RLR when they were one of the dominate teams...they regressed...she came to AGR when they were the dominate team...they've regressed every year since. She does not have "talent" of a professional race car driver at the top level, period.Quote:
Originally Posted by beachbum
I tend to disagree. Danica has enough talent to hustle an Indy car fairly well. At times, she has shown the ability to pull a quick lap out of the hat. But IMHO EagleEye has it right. 95% of her focus is on her "brand" and she has relied on other "talents" rather than develop her driving. She may be a decent driver, but she isn't much of a racer. For the past few years (especially last year) she seems to have settled into just circulating and picking up whatever crumbs are left behind when others (who are actually racing) make mistakes. With decent speed, some of those crumbs were pretty nice.Quote:
Originally Posted by TURN3
In her early years, it was fairly obvious that no drivers raced her very hard. Dixon considered her a menace because she couldn't hold a consistent line. It seems like a lot of drivers just let her go or just got out of her way. With the hype machine running full steam, criticism of her was suppressed and even today very few racing people talk candidly about her. It is all "bunnies and rainbows". But a few of the candid remarks have been pretty scathing and she has left a lot of scorched bunnies in her wake.
When she was with RLR, she had the best oval equipment and a huge weight advantage so she was pretty quick. Yet she couldn't translate that into success. Later a couple drivers started racing her hard (Carpenter comes to mind) and quickly found she could be intimidated. I think that is when the "gaining" -5 positions on restarts came from. She has tried to be more aggressive, but it seems to have backfired most of the time. She just doesn't have the racing talent to pull it off. So she hugs the bottom on ovals and mostly races by herself at most tracks. The fact that she passed Simona at Long Beach was noteworthy indicates just how rare that is.
IMHO, she has driving talent, but either doesn't care or doesn't know how to develop that into being an all around race driver. I suspect the latter. She can still throw up a good lap from time to time, so it is entirely possible to see her qualify near the front. But the depth and quality of the field keeps improving and I suspect her results will slowly deteriorate. When the results aren't there, her personality (or lack thereof) may have a bigger negative impact. At some point, reality will overtake hype and the racing media can move on to covering real racers, not over hyped curiosities.
Both EE and BB make great points but yet disagree with me on the talent issue. I guess it comes down to definition of talent, and to that interpretation we can disagree. To me, all of your posts are very factual and observative. But in this thread they also describe to me a person I don't consider to have talent (regardless of who they are directed at). Very good analysis on both your parts but we obviously define "talent" differently. Dario, Dixon, Briscoe, Helio, Will, Justin, RHR, TK, etc...they all have "talent". Technically, Danica does too but I think it is about Barber Pro level...where she still was out-performed.
Patrick was up against Jon Fogarty, Ryan Dalziel, Andrew Ranger, Ronnie Bremer, Bryan Sellers, Alex Figge and Jonathan Bomarito. Legge was up against Charles Zwolsman, Tonis Kasamets, Antoine Bessette, Andreas Wirth, David Martinez and Al Unser III. Personally, I feel the former is a deeper field than the latter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
Bear in mind, I'm not arguing for or against Danica, I don't really care about where this debate is going because I don't really care about her. My argument only concerns the statement regarding the depth of the 2004 and 2005 Atlantic fields.
There are many types of driving "talents". IMHO, there is ample evidence she has the talent to drive an IRL car at competitive speeds. It takes a certain level of talent to do that and she has proven that with the occasional good result.Quote:
Originally Posted by TURN3
But if you define talent as the ability to race hard, create and use a strategy to pass other drivers on track, set up a car, or even find the best race lines, she isn't very talented in those areas. The result is that she has enough speed to often qualify fairly well or even take advantage of a team using pit strategy to get her to or near the front. But there is almost no danger of her racing to the front.
There are quite a few journeyman racers who fit the same mold. She isn't the worst who has raced at this level by any means. But the main gripes by many fans are that she isn't nearly as good as the hype and she doesn't have the ability or dedication to develop any more than she has. Quite a few (including myself) are offended that she got where she is by playing off her "other talents" and living off the fantasies of sophomoric thinking people.
My take is that she will always just be an average pro at best who happens to be in excellent equipment that makes her look a lot better than she is. She gets attention (even here) that far overshadows her value as a race driver alone. If all she had to bring to the show was her racing talent, she would not be in the IRL.
Now when she gets to NASCAR......... IMHO, that experiment won't last long as she hasn't shown any talent in those cars.
You "respect" a driver for having the ability to secure sponsorship? I'm thinking in racing terms and I don't see where any respect is offered on the track due to fortunate business associations. I don't disrespect Danica for using sex appeal to sell, that is the society we live in like it or not (and I generally do!). But if you respect her for that then you respect Milka, Moraes, Viso, etc. I realize this is all a product of the times with the state of racing in general and the economy. Fact is though, Danica isn't sniffing a ride in Indycar if teams were on stable financial backing. You'd have Tracy, Rahal, Hinch, RHR (full-time), Bourdais, Doornbos, Jani, Bomarito (sp), etc. etc. etc. I'm leaving off a ton of names I realize but you get the point. She is a product of the environment and while she isn't the "worst" Indycar driver even she certainly doesn't rank in the top 20-25 of current or currently available drivers either. She's on track because she can sell with sex appeal, period.