Danica Patrick crashes in Pits - again...

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Originally Posted by MDS

In Kat's defense she won two Atlantic races against the similar fields Danica raced in. Also she never wrecked a car coming in to make pit stop, Took out her own teammate in the pits, rammed the side of another car under caution, spun out and nearly injured a pit crew, walked down pit road to create a public incident nor has she pushed and shoved another driver in the garage.

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Similar fields? in quantity, but certainly not quality and argureably one of the weakest Formula Atlantic fields in history.

In 2004 you had Jon Fogarty winning his 2nd Atlantic championship, with Ryan Dalziel 2nd, Danica 3rd & Andrew Ranger 4th.

In 2005 you had Charles Zwolsman 1st, Tõnis Kasemets 2nd, and in a tie for 3rd Legge and Antoine Bessette (who I think is selling cars somewhere now)

For compairson Kasemets finished the season in 13th in 2004.

As far as lap times go, lets look at a comparison

2004 Pole time / Danica Q time
2005 Pole Time / Legge Q Time

Long Beach
2004 Dalziel : 1:18.563 / Danica : 1:19.275
2005 Bessette : 1:19.375 / Legge : 1:20.027

Monterry
2004 Dalziel : 1:24.753 / Danica : 1:25.341
2005 Zwolsman : 1:26.831 / Legge : 1:28.863

Portland 1
2004 Fogarty : 1:08.404 / Danica : 1:08.686
2005 Wirth : 1:08.546 / Legge : 1:10.710

Portland 2
2004 Danica : 1:07.155 (Pole)
2005 Kasemets : 1:09.152 / Legge : 1:13.347

Cleveland
2004 Dalziel : 1:06.447 / Danica : 1:07.727
2005 Zwolsman : 1:07.854 / Legge : 1:08.542

Toronto
2004 Fogarty : 1:05.803 / Danica : 1:06.430
2005 Zwolsman : 1:07.335 / Legge : 1:07.944

Road America
2004 Dalziel : 1:59.504 / Danica : 2:00.970
2005 Kasemets : 2:01.747 / Legge : 2:02.871

Montreal
2004 Fogarty : 1:32.913 / Danica : 1:33.376
2005 Martinez : 1:35.084 / Legge : 1:35.970

And even with Legge's 3 wins, she still scored less points that Danica did.

The Danica vs. Katherine argument is just silly. The only conclusion that can be reached in the end is that they are both racers and deserve to be taken seriously. Sure I wish Legge survived the blendification and was racing here now, but I also wish Paul Tracy, and Nelson Phillipe and some other really fast drivers who only wanted to be paid for their services were in the series. But it is what it is and that boat has sailed, so we need to move on.

Regardless of what her teamates think of her, and really, most drivers would run over their mothers for a race win, The bottom line is Danica finishes ahead of more equally talented male drivers than she finishes behind.

You assume track conditions and weather were identical. I know for a fact there was rain in Portland and a slight change to Clevelend because they added the stupid barrel in turn 1 that caused major problems with both CC and Atlantics.

Its also obvious you didn't speak to any of the returning Atlantic drivers, engineers or teams otherwise you might have known the year over year performance drop from 2004 to 2005 was due more to rule changes than driver quality.

Besides minor chassis mods there was also the mandated change to Hasselgren built 4A-GE engines and drop in rpm limit to help the engines last more races. All in the spirit of controlling escallating costs. The performance delta was not the same at all venues. Pre-season testing pegged the difference around 1.4 m.p.h.

Instead of comparing pole times, maybe you should consider comparing aggregate or best race lap times. Your darling Danica ran 1:18.937 (89.753 mph) while Kat ran 1:19.145 (89.517 mph). When you factor in the 1 mph difference in pace between the seasons, Kat was actually faster than DP and Bessette faster than Dalziel.

Everything is not as black and white as you'd like it to be.

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Originally Posted by gofastandwynn

Similar fields? in quantity, but certainly not quality and argureably one of the weakest Formula Atlantic fields in history.

In 2004 you had Jon Fogarty winning his 2nd Atlantic championship, with Ryan Dalziel 2nd, Danica 3rd & Andrew Ranger 4th.

In 2005 you had Charles Zwolsman 1st, Tõnis Kasemets 2nd, and in a tie for 3rd Legge and Antoine Bessette (who I think is selling cars somewhere now)

For compairson Kasemets finished the season in 13th in 2004.

As far as lap times go, lets look at a comparison

2004 Pole time / Danica Q time
2005 Pole Time / Legge Q Time

Long Beach
2004 Dalziel : 1:18.563 / Danica : 1:19.275
2005 Bessette : 1:19.375 / Legge : 1:20.027

Monterry
2004 Dalziel : 1:24.753 / Danica : 1:25.341
2005 Zwolsman : 1:26.831 / Legge : 1:28.863

Portland 1
2004 Fogarty : 1:08.404 / Danica : 1:08.686
2005 Wirth : 1:08.546 / Legge : 1:10.710

Portland 2
2004 Danica : 1:07.155 (Pole)
2005 Kasemets : 1:09.152 / Legge : 1:13.347

Cleveland
2004 Dalziel : 1:06.447 / Danica : 1:07.727
2005 Zwolsman : 1:07.854 / Legge : 1:08.542

Toronto
2004 Fogarty : 1:05.803 / Danica : 1:06.430
2005 Zwolsman : 1:07.335 / Legge : 1:07.944

Road America
2004 Dalziel : 1:59.504 / Danica : 2:00.970
2005 Kasemets : 2:01.747 / Legge : 2:02.871

Montreal
2004 Fogarty : 1:32.913 / Danica : 1:33.376
2005 Martinez : 1:35.084 / Legge : 1:35.970

And even with Legge's 3 wins, she still scored less points that Danica did.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by gofastandwynn

I remember Mario Andretti doing that right infront of me at Michigan in 93 or 94, and seeing people spin leaving the pits on cold tires quite often in the CART days...

EDIT: Found the video on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jjZkTqk3Os About the 14:00 min mark

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You enabled me to go back in time 15 years and hang out for 37 minutes. For that I thank you greatly. Watching two World Driving Champions battle it out at Michigan warmed my heart.

The only similarity that I see between Mario's incident and Danica's is that they both lost control of their cars while leaving the pits. But that's where the similarity ends. Mario didn't hit anything (or anyone), didn't go flying through anyone else's pits... and even lit a nasty bootleg that brought the crowd to a roar with his daring and skill. He was just a bad mutha... Shut yo mouth! Hey, I'm talkin' about Mario Andretti! Danica, on the other hand... I understand that Ralph Nader has a search party out looking for her today. IMO, this is simply another example of her talent and skill level not meeting with the hype that surrounds her. Nothing more. Nothing less.

How about that Mario looking all fresh & cool after 500 hard miles and Mansell looking like a whipped dog? 14 years older and the old man still had that jazz!

And I do mean it: thanks for posting that YouTube link. For anyone that can't spare 37 minutes to be REALLY happy, skip ahead to 14 minutes in.

It's pretty unfortunate that IndyCar has to resort to promoting itself through Danica to gain ratings.

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Originally Posted by jarrambide

My thoughts exactly, but as I mentioned last week when Manning publicly call out his fellow drivers, the outrage is less when is a man, almost no one got outrage at Manning.

If Manning makes a mistake I will feel he was reaping what he sows, but I don´t think the thread would be as long as this one.

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Manning, a driver with an impressive racing resume (much more impressive than Danica's), but largely unknown in the U.S. Even though he has more lifetime pro championships than she has lifetime pro wins, Manning is nothing more than a face in the crowd in the U.S. No one mentioned anything that he might have said (what did he say anyway?) probably because almost no one knows who he is. I saw him a few times years ago. But by now, I doubt I could pick him out in a 2 person lineup. While her PR team likely rivals the size of Manning's pitcrew.

Other than being a female, I respectfully ask, what else does Danica have going for her? Emotion aside. Really. What? An F3 win or two? A Barber-Dodge championship? Even a single win? Anything? Danica finally won a pro race this year. And I congratulate her on that accomplishment. But at what point can we speak of her in racing terms, without someone having to defend her using her gender as a basis?

Here's how I see it:
Angelle Sampey is an accomplished racer.
At best, Danica Patrick is an accomplished female racer.

It would be hard to spin it otherwise, IMO.

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

Manning, a driver with an impressive racing resume (much more impressive than Danica's), but largely unknown in the U.S. Even though he has more lifetime pro championships than she has lifetime pro wins, Manning is nothing more than a face in the crowd in the U.S. No one mentioned anything that he might have said (what did he say anyway?) probably because almost no one knows who he is. I saw him a few times years ago. But by now, I doubt I could pick him out in a 2 person lineup. While her PR team likely rivals the size of Manning's pitcrew.

Other than being a female, I respectfully ask, what else does Danica have going for her? Emotion aside. Really. What? An F3 win or two? A Barber-Dodge championship? Even a single win? Anything? Danica finally won a pro race this year. And I congratulate her on that accomplishment. But at what point can we speak of her in racing terms, without someone having to defend her using her gender as a basis?

Here's how I see it:
Angelle Sampey is an accomplished racer.
At best, Danica Patrick is an accomplished female racer.

It would be hard to spin it otherwise, IMO.

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Are we talking about the same Manning?, I´m talking about Darren Manning, the Darren Manning that is in his 4th year in the IRL and after 51 starts has not a single win in his "impressive" resume, the same Darren Manning that after 51 stars has one podium, the one he got last weekend.

I´m talking about the Darren Manning that in 19 starts in CART/CC had no wins and only one podium.

I´m talking about the Darren Manning that in 21 starts in Formula 3000 had no wins, he had 2 podiums, but no wins.

The last time Manning won was in 1999, in the Japan Formula 3 series, he was the champion, but not even winning a single race after winning a Formula 3 series is not impressive.

I dislike Patrick a lot, I hate the fact she feels she is so good that with only one win under her resume she calls other drivers amateurs and stupids, but seeing that a driver like Manning with no wins at all on a major formula, a driver that has not won a race in 9 years and has only 4 podiums in those 9 years gets a free pass for saying the same things as Danica, a free pass because he is a male driver, not only that, his resume is called impressive (much more impressive than Danica´s) to keep bashing Danica.

Danica is also on her 4th year as an Indy Car driver, she has 1 win (one more than Manning), and 3 more podiums (obviously a total of 4 with the win), 3 more than Manning. She was in the Atlantic series for 2 years(2003 and 2004), no wins, but 4 podiums.

Manning from 2000 until 2008, no wins and 4 podiums, Patrick from 2003 until 2008 1 win and 8 podiums (including her win), none have an impressive resume, and is unfair to compare different teams and formulas, but Manning definitively has not a resume better than Danica, but he gets a free ride.

My point is still the same, I dislike drivers, specially non stellar drivers like Manning and Patrick, calling out other drivers, but I see that Patrick gets more heat than male drivers.

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Originally Posted by pits4me

You assume track conditions and weather were identical. I know for a fact there was rain in Portland and a slight change to Clevelend because they added the stupid barrel in turn 1 that caused major problems with both CC and Atlantics.

Its also obvious you didn't speak to any of the returning Atlantic drivers, engineers or teams otherwise you might have known the year over year performance drop from 2004 to 2005 was due more to rule changes than driver quality.

Besides minor chassis mods there was also the mandated change to Hasselgren built 4A-GE engines and drop in rpm limit to help the engines last more races. All in the spirit of controlling escallating costs. The performance delta was not the same at all venues. Pre-season testing pegged the difference around 1.4 m.p.h.

Instead of comparing pole times, maybe you should consider comparing aggregate or best race lap times. Your darling Danica ran 1:18.937 (89.753 mph) while Kat ran 1:19.145 (89.517 mph). When you factor in the 1 mph difference in pace between the seasons, Kat was actually faster than DP and Bessette faster than Dalziel.

Everything is not as black and white as you'd like it to be.

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If I wanted to compare both of their times, I would have just posted Danica & Legge's times. I posted the pole sitters times to give comparison of how much they were off the pace to show that time wise they were in the same zone. (I know that doesn't fit with your agenda, but I can see how you want to interpret it that way)

Watching this again, I agree that she just lost it. It looks like she made a slight correction to the right coming out of her pit, and because she spun the back tires so hard the car completely lost traction. It sounds like AGR was planning on Danica making her spots in the pits, not on the course, so they had her gearing optimized for standing starts. Too much for her to handle.

As far as Danica vs Legge, well it's a stupid comparison. Like Fisher vs DP. True, Fisher has not had the cars that DP has had. But the fact of the matter is that Danica has run well for several years, top 10 in IRL and has a win, Legge and Fisher have not.

Edit: I just read TK's comment in the Indy Star article. Very funny. He's been around racing too long to let her off on a slippery paint excuse.

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

The only similarity that I see between Mario's incident and Danica's is that they both lost control of their cars while leaving the pits. But that's where the similarity ends. Mario didn't hit anything (or anyone), didn't go flying through anyone else's pits... and even lit a nasty bootleg that brought the crowd to a roar with his daring and skill. He was just a bad mutha... Shut yo mouth! Hey, I'm talkin' about Mario Andretti! Danica, on the other hand... I understand that Ralph Nader has a search party out looking for her today. IMO, this is simply another example of her talent and skill level not meeting with the hype that surrounds her. Nothing more. Nothing less.

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That is because they both have the same cause. Some one leaving the pits on cold tires and spinning out. If Mario was 10 feet in he would have done the same thing. (The thing that kept Danica from going all the way around was the pit wall) The this was an admitted driver error that she took responsibility for. The only one making a big deal out of it is people on the internet. I just don't see it as a big deal. Where is the uproar for Dixon taking out Briscone? Wasn't Dixon the one calling out Patrick for being a menace a few week ago, then he does that? Where is his uproar?

P.S. oh yea, for Jag any anyone else who wants classic youtube racing, check out racingfan99 & champcar4ever