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As she marched down pit road, I was thinking, I've seen that walk before....In my younger days, I was out drinking all night and watched my ex-wife walk up the driveway of my friends house...I'd recognize that walk anywhere....

So those of you that race or even track your cars wouldn't have done the same thing??? Horse hockey!!! Now the Chris Bingham/JC Francis Fight, that was a fight!!!

She gets paid to drive an Indy car for a living ,and here we have a bunch of keyboard commandos spending their weekend sitting behind a computer, saying how much she sucks.....:confused::p

I think Danica can drive, but she doesn't have the ability of most of the Indy car field. If you put Sara Fisher behind the wheel of the equipment Danica has been given, she would have a win under her belt as well.

The thing that is annoying about Danica is she pouts like a little girl every time things don't go her way. I remember her grabbing Dan Wheldon last year after a minor collision and what was he to do? She needs to be more professional and roll with the punches, and grow up. I don't think she would be so bold if she was a guy because then the other party WOULD fight back.

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Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile (Post 3964088)

Adrian Sutil got shafted way worse than she did.

Screw the Earl anyway. I refuse to support fkin Tony G.

He wasn't in the top 5, so I'd say no!

Maybe he was just thinking with the wrong head for a moment and wanted to nail her. Hell, if I was behind her I would be thinking of nailing too yoo, but I tend to do that. Except when I am with the wife where I consciously avoid looking as much as I can.:cool:

I just wanna say two things:

How bout Mika Dunno and Danica Patrick colliding and then goin at it, maybe in a fountain like the old Miller Lite ad?

And, Kimi Raikonnen what awesome car control. Ok, he shouldn't have gotten sideways....but he was wayyy going to lose it and somehow brought it back. That wreck should have been much worse. If Sutil was on the gas, maybe MAYBE he would have gotten away. The number of race card drivers who could pull that off are maybe 1 in a 1000.

Here's a link to those who want it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpxPjBZh0LE

ok, sorry....I digress...continue

It WAS her fault. She had a little thing called a BRAKE pedal that she could have used. She KNEW that she couldn't pass in the pits, she could take it slow, so why was she trying. Tony G. needs her in this league because it helps sales. A little pouting from a also-ran. Put any of the younger stars in her car, make or female, and they would have better chances to win.

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Originally Posted by strupgolf (Post 3966102)

Hmm, he pulled out and fishtailed into her lane as she came alongside. Had he not fishtailed and stayed in his lane then no foul.

She is currently 6th in the standings, meaning she is driving better than 31 other guys, finished 7th last year and 9th the year before, think I see a pattern here. She is improving and is without a doubt a top 10 driver.

Actually Sutil was running 4th with no pit stops required when he was KOed by Kimi. He might have even gotten a podium finish. Possible, but unlikely. Most likely he'd have finished 4th, certainly in the points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by strupgolf (Post 3966102)

Wrong. She was too far along side of Briscoe to do much. Besides, that all happens in the blink of an eye. To walk down the hot pit lane during a race, caution or not, is wrong as well. She would have never made it on the other side of the wall and she didn't make it on the hot side. Pretty stupid but a great attention getter. The marketing people must love it.

Speaking of that, did anyone notice the female "handler" ever present at Danica's side?

Quote:

Originally Posted by strupgolf (Post 3966102)

It WAS her fault. She had a little thing called a BRAKE pedal that she could have used. She KNEW that she couldn't pass in the pits, she could take it slow, so why was she trying.

He hit the BACK wheel. She was already past him. He hit her plain & simple. Does he get a pass because he has a dick & she doesn't?

Her being is 6th place in the points indicates she has a top ten car and team, not that she is one of the best drivers.
These cars are driven with the gas pedal all the way down all the time unless the car is not set up properly. The steering wheel input is minimal. There is very little driving being done compared to some other forms of motorsport such as road racing.
Put almost any other indy car driver in her car and they would do as good or better.

Quote:

"Not pleased over what Briscoe did, Patrick got out of her car and started to walk down pit lane, at one point taking off her driving gloves and getting ready for a confrontation. But it's a good thing they were separated by six pit stalls as IndyCar officials and a security guard intervened, sending her back to her own stall.

"It is probably best I didn't get down there anyway, isn't it?" Patrick said.

Briscoe, who also was knocked out of the race and finished 23rd, saw the incident differently.

"There are people pointing fingers, but that's not the way we are," he said. "We both have a brake pedal in our cars, and from what I can tell, there was still plenty of room for her to get around me. I was staying in the middle lane. I got ran up in the back, and it's a shame."

Quote:

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 Indy Racing League 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.

Although her rivals in Sunday’s race have said she doesn’t have a huge advantage, pole-sitter Tony Kanaan told reporters he would like the Indy Racing League to look into the issue. “Right off the bat, a guy my size is spotting her 105 pounds,” Gordon said.

2005 indy 500:

Quote:

Patrick overcame a couple of mistakes to take the lead late in the race. She stalled the engine in the pits on her Honda-power Panoz on lap 79, falling to 16th, last on the lead lap.

She kept her cool and moved all the way to eighth before making another error as the cars began to speed up for a restart after a long caution period. She nearly ran into the car of Scott Sharp, turning sideways and getting hit hard by fellow rookie Tomas Enge. Tomas Scheckter spun to avoid Patrick and slid into the inside wall.

"I'm sorry," said told her team on the radio. "They slowed."

So what would a 1 mph average speed advantage work out to in a 500 mile race? How about qualifying? How many spots would she be down if that 1 mph was taken away?

Maybe teams should look for smaller drivers or put their current drivers on diets.

I mean after all if it's all about the car/team and not driver talent then it does not matter who gets behind the wheel right?

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Originally Posted by sammyg2 (Post 3966376)

Man, is that naive or what? Did you see the in car camera version of the Vitor Mira pass? That's total bravery and control. Minimum input yes, because the cars are on a rail next to being out of control. Race speeds are reduced from qualifying speeds for a number of reasons, but the difference between 222 (at the end) and 228 is not even a heartbeat. The difference in turbulence and prevailing winds changes form lap to lap. You don't suppose there's a wind sock in each corner for the fans to look at do you? :D

In laydown karts at Willow, we hardly moved the wheel. Just looking toward the corner shifted the shoulders enough to have the kart start to move over. A 16th of a full turn would finish the job of corner entry. After that, there was a little wheel movement to control the slip angle. Many oval car racers liken the skill to driving INDY cars to the same skill set involved in karts.

Likewise, many road course drivers including F1 see a great similarity to sprint karts and regularly work out in them. Sawing away at the wheel shows a lack of confidence in the car. NASCAR rookies running Talladega for the first time tend to try to over drive the cars and not let them drive themselves, which they pretty much do out of traffic. But to say there is little driving done there or at Indy is not correct. Sometimes less driving is more using trust as the key to speed. To me, that's real driving and I can tell you that I never had that last 5 % in me to let go and see what happens.

I don't know if I've made my point in all this rambling, but minimal input is a trained skill. Not to mention all the rest of what a driver does: communicate, set weight bars and sway bars, shift from 5th to 6th and back again on both straights, manage all the fuel settings and last and most important, do the pit stop. It's all part of the ability to drive these cars.

Danica led last year fair and square, no gimme's. She just didn't have the car this year and then she got bumped out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VINMAN (Post 3965774)

She gets paid to drive an Indy car for a living ,and here we have a bunch of keyboard commandos spending their weekend sitting behind a computer, ..:confused::p

Yourself included...

Milka and Dannica grudge match, as long as were are in OT forum