Poll Position: Ready to write off Danica after four Nationwide events?
CBSSports.com editor Brian De Los Santos, writer Pete Pistone and a chosen member of the community (for a pure fan perspective) share their thoughts on this week's poll question.
Danica Patrick wrecked for the third time in four starts in the Nationwide Series. Are you ready to declare Patrick's foray into NASCAR a failure or do you think she can improve with more seat time?
PETE PISTONE: It would be more than unfair to call Patrick's move to NASCAR a failure after only four Nationwide Series starts. The expectation level might have been set too high by some earlier in the year but as the hype dies down most understand that this is all about learning and getting that valuable seat time. Her lap times do seem to improve as practice wears on each weekend she's entered, but unfortunately, once the green flag flies Patrick more often than not has found trouble on track, whether it's her fault or not. Saturday's Lap 7 encounter with Morgan Shepherd and then the wall didn't help matters at all and although she completed 195 laps, she basically limped around the rest of the race driving a battered race car which taught her nothing.
Patrick's biggest problem remains the jumping back and forth between IndyCar and NASCAR, which she'll do again this week when the IRL runs at Watkins Glen. By the time she returns to NASCAR the following Friday night at Chicagoland Speedway, she'll have to go through the process of forgetting what she did the previous week in her open-wheel ride and re-learn the stock-car cockpit. Better drivers with more experience than Patrick have found the crossover to be nearly impossible. And I now wonder how it might impact her IndyCar program, which has been pretty strong of late with three straight top-10 finishes. I still think she can become an accomplished presence in NASCAR, but it will take her a lot longer to learn the stock car discipline with her current schedule.
BRIAN DE LOS SANTOS: If she's going to continue to part-time it, then, yes, we might as well close the door on this mess and call it a failure. By no means did I think she'd strap into a stock car and have instant success, but it's clear that if she can't give stock cars her undivided attention, improvement will be a pipe dream. She's wasting everybody's time with a race here and a race there.
The curiosity factor has made her Nationwide races a big draw, but I wonder how much longer before those tuning in or showing up just to watch her get turned off by her lack of production. I imagine that interest could start to wane rather quickly.
She needs to throw her heart and soul into NASCAR if she really wants to have any type of success in a stock car. It's not the wrecks she has been in that concern me -- although it is a problem if it continues to happen 75 percent of the time she gets behind the wheel. The problem is that she's just plain slow, and without oodles and oodles of practice time in a stock car, it's not going to get much better.
That said, even if she gave stock cars her undivided attention, I'd wager she'd struggle to crack the top 20 on a regular basis. The transition of open-wheelers into stock cars in recent years just isn't all that good. Championship winning drivers such at Jacques Villeneuve, Paul Tracy, Sam Hornish Jr. and Dario Franchitti have all tried their hand at NASCAR with little success. Consider the plight of Hornish Jr., the 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner and three-time IRL champion. In 89 career Cup races since deciding to make the jump to NASCAR, he has just seven top 10s. His career average in a Cup car is 27th.
bluejay39: Four races in the Nationwide Series is hardly enough time to determine if a driver can be deemed a success or failure. I did not see the race but watched a replay of the incident and it would appear she was a victim once again. Not many drivers win in their first few starts or even do real well. Jamie McMurray won in his second Cup start in Concord and it took him almost five years to get back to Victory Lane.
If I recall, Danica Patrick finished sixth in her first ARCA race so that wasn't a total failure. Granted the ARCA Series isn't Nationwide or Cup but it still has some competitive racing. I'm not trying to make excuses for Patrick and I'm not a fan per se, but to say, think or even ask, if she is a failure is ridiculous at this time. Then again, if you can't get past Morgan Shepherd, maybe it isn't so ridiculous.
As far as do I think she can improve with more seat time, she certainly can't get much worse.
