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Post tags: Danica Patrick, go daddy, jr motorsports, nationwide series

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Simona de Silvestro is enjoying the extra attention these days because she earned it on the track.

The 22-year-old Swiss IndyCar driver finished a career-best fourth two weeks ago at St. Petersburg, after all.

“It’s pretty cool,” de Silvestro said Friday morning while winding down a series of media interviews. “It’s definitely the busiest I’ve ever been in my racing career. It’s fun because people appreciate what I did at St. Pete and all that.”

Extra attention is something Danica Patrick hardly needs or covets. She laughingly told the story at her pre-race news conference Friday of a recent baby shower when a friend tried to shield her from racing talk from the woman’s own mother.

The two female IndyCar racers hardly are equal in name recognition going into Sunday’s Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park, and that’s OK with de Silvestro. She’s only in her second year on the IndyCar series while Patrick is a six-year veteran going into her 100th start.(...)
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Post tags: Barber Motorsports Park, Danica Patrick, go daddy, indy izod series, simona de silvestro

The women of NASCAR have not had it easy on their path into the male dominated sport of stock car racing, but some have garnered considerable attention for their attempts to race with the boys.

Many of the women who have been able to race in the top-three series of NASCAR came from a background in karting just like many of the guys.

Those who began karting at a young age often gravitate to the open-wheel series and do somewhat better than they do with the heavier, bulky stock cars.

There were women who came into racing as a novelty back in the very early days of NASCAR, but did surprisingly well against the men we consider legends.

Since the 1970′s we have seen a spattering of women from the IndyCar series try and make their mark in NASCAR.(...)
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Post tags: chrissy wallace, Danica Patrick, ethel mobley, janet guthrie, Jennifer Jo Cobb, johanna long, nascar, patty moise, sara christian, shawna robinson, tammy jo kirk, women of nascar

Stellar as that Indianapolis 500 run was and scary as that fiery Texas crash appeared, Simona de Silvestro hopes her second IndyCar Series season provides even more excitement.

The Swiss driver definitely has more than her share of anticipation following a promising debut that didn’t surprise her all that much — not even the 14th-place Indy run that claimed rookie of the year honors. Top-10 finishes in races at Toronto and Mid-Ohio merely reinforced her road-course credentials, and have her eager to maintain her upward trajectory in Sunday’s season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, where de Silvestro was 16th in just her second series start a year ago.

“I think (my goals) have moved because it’s going to be my second year, and I think last year, we showed that we were running quite well on the road courses,” said de Silvestro, who finished 19th in points and earned the Tony Renna Firestone Rising Star award.(...)
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Post tags: Danica Patrick, entergy, honda grand prix of st petersburg, indy car, IZOD, simona de silverstro, st petersburg

What’s better than Danica Patrick in NASCAR? How about her first real feud with another driver?

The full-time IndyCar Series driver, who is a part-time NASCAR Nationwide Series participant, got her first experience at the dizzying BMS in Bristol, Tenn., on Saturday, when she ran into the rear quarter-panel of Ryan Truex’s car and crashed hard into the wall.

“What the (bleep) was that?” Patrick screamed in her radio after the crash.

Patrick was running 17th, two laps down, when she tagged the wall with 52 laps left; her first crash this season. Patrick was uninjured and walked up the track with her arms in the air when Truex drove by during what was the seventh caution of the race.

What was surprising with that move, however, is it was clear Patrick ran into the back of Truex, which caused her to lose control and smack the wall. Truex, who is just 19, said his car was loose and, as he tried to save it, it drifted into Patrick’s path.

“I guess she thought I meant to do that,” Truex said on the radio. What Truex heard next from his pit area on the radio was, “Don’t worry — she’s never been wrong about anything in her whole life. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

It was more an example of tight racing at the high-banked, Bristol short track, where “beatin’ and bangin” leads to “fussin” and “feudin” in this “Big Boy” and “Big Girl” version of NASCAR.(...)
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Post tags: Danica Patrick, go daddy, jr motorsports, nationwide series

Patrick’s fourth-place run at Las Vegas broke a 62-year-old NASCAR record for the highest finishing female in one of the sport’s national touring series races. Sara Christian held the record when she finished fifth in a NASCAR race at Heidelberg, PA in 1949.

The 28-year-old Patrick has yet to see the 0.533-mile, high-banked Bristol track, but she should have plenty of practice time on the track on Friday. There are four Nationwide practice sessions scheduled here that day.

“I’m really looking forward to running at Bristol,” Patrick said. “This is my first trip to the track, and I can’t wait for the challenge. Obviously, it’s a well known circuit that always has exciting events. I’ve heard that it’s similar to Dover, a track that I ran last season.”(...)
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Post tags: Danica Patrick, jr motorsports, nascar, nationwide series

LAS VEGAS — Anyone who says Danica Patrick had her best NASCAR finish Saturday because of fuel mileage is dead wrong.

Patrick made history with her fourth-place finish, the best ever for a woman in a national NASCAR event.

That record stood for 62 years. Sara Christian finished fifth at Pittsburgh in 1949 during NASCAR’s inaugural season.

Patrick is the first woman to lead a lap at Indianapolis and Daytona, the first woman to win a major open-wheel event and the first woman to finish in the top four in a NASCAR touring-series race.

And don’t say she lucked out. She earned what she got Saturday in the Sam’s Town 300 Nationwide Series race.

True, she wasn’t going to finish fourth if not for some of the drivers ahead of her having to pit for fuel in the final laps. But Patrick probably was headed for a top-10 without the fuel-mileage situation.(...)
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Post tags: Danica Patrick, go daddy, nascar, nationwide series

By Jill Erwin, NASCAR.COM

When Danica Patrick led a lap Saturday at Daytona International Speedway, she became the first woman in any of NASCAR’s top touring series to do so at the historic track.

But she was there partly because those before her led laps nearly 25 years ago.

Patrick is the current standard-bearer for women in the Nationwide Series, grabbing the majority of the headlines and attention. But women have had roller-coaster experiences in NASCAR’s second-tier series since the early ’80s.

Diane Teel started it at Martinsville in 1982, the first woman to race in the Nationwide Series. Patty Moise became the first woman to lead a lap in the series in 1987. Shawna Robinson joined Moise through the early part of the ’90s. In the 2000s, plenty of women made short forays before falling out for random reasons.

But all of them set the stage for the present … and the future.

The past

Teel was racing at Langley Speedway in Virginia when she got a call from Bill Champion, who asked her to drive his car in a Dash Series race at Atlanta in 1979. She failed to make the field, qualifying 44th out of 58 cars, but said she will always remember the words of encouragement she received from one of racing’s biggest names.

“Richard Petty and I were sitting on the back of his truck in Atlanta,” Teel said. “I told him ‘It’s like I have the plague. No one wants to talk to me.’ And he said, ‘Don’t worry about that, they’ve just forgot where they started out. Every one of them started just like you did.’ I will thank that man to the end of my life.”(...)
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Post tags: 2nd chance motorsports, busch series, chrissy wallce, Danica Patrick, debbie lundsford, diane teel, erin crocker, go daddy, Jennifer Jo Cobb, jr motorsports, kat teasdale, kim brosby, lisa jackson, mara reyes, nascar, nationwide series, patty moise, shawna robinson, tammy jo kirk, tina gordon

Two female NASCAR drivers, Danica Patrick and Jennifer Jo Cobb, had reason to celebrate at Daytona International Speedway this past weekend, with both posting career-best finishes.

By Rea White

In the Nationwide Series, Patrick made her presence felt.

She raced to the front of the field, working with Clint Bowyer in the two-car tandems needed for a driver to move toward the leaders, as horsepower is mechanically harnessed in the Nationwide Series. Suddenly, she moved to the front of the field and led a lap of competition.

It was a career weekend. Patrick started fourth, led the lap and finished 14th. Her starting position and finish were her best such efforts in a NASCAR race. Patrick, 28, was making her 14th start in the JR Motorsports Chevrolet, an effort she is fielding part time as she continues her full schedule in the IZOD IndyCar Series. (She has won on the IndyCar circuit.)

Patrick said it was “fun,” but she said that trying to figure out the Daytona drafting process was frustrating at times.

Still, she accepts it will take her a while to reach a point where other drivers are working with her on a consistent basis and pushing her toward the front.

“That takes a while to earn the trust and respect from all the other drivers,” she said. “I’m not mad at that. That’s just going to take time, and it’ll only get better from here on out, hopefully, with that stuff.”

She thinks, though, that running well and clean at Daytona will help her down the road.

First, she clearly had a fast car, something that bodes well for her upcoming races. Although those races are at tracks vastly different from Daytona, she believes running closer to the front and among a wider group of drivers will help her earn that respect.

And that could be her largest gain of the weekend.(...)
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Post tags: 2nd chance motorsports, camping world truck series, Danica Patrick, daytona international speedway, go daddy, Jennifer Jo Cobb, jr motorsports, lily's cosmetics, nationwide series

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Post tags: Danica Patrick, daytona, go daddy, jr motorsports, nascar, nationwide series