Danika Patrick's first Open Wheel win good news for open wheel racing in US

Posted Yesterday 11:31 AM by Todd Lassa Filed under: Motorsports, Motor City Blogman

Danica Patrick's first victory was not on the front page of my New York Times sports section this morning. That page was filled with golf, horse racing and as usual during the racing season, a pastime known as baseball. No, Patrick's Indy Japan 300 win at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit yesterday was on the front page. Of The New York Times. Period. Yes, it was below the fold -- Pope Benedict XVI's last day in the U.S. was the lead story, but Patrick's story transcended the Monday morning sports pages nonetheless.

Her victory and its treatment in the national press tell you something about its importance to the sport. Patrick became a media darling when she qualified on the inside of the second row for her first Indy 500 three years ago. In her rookie year, she became the first woman to lead the race, and she finished fourth. Critics have waited for her success -- it's first-place or no place in this business -- for three years. Since the '05 Indy 500, she jumped from the Rahal Letterman team to the more competitive Andretti Green. Her best finish was a second at the Detroit race last summer.

Now, the pundits say, we move beyond questioning whether she was capable of winning. And now, presumably, we move beyond the gender issue, just as it looked like Formula One moved beyond the race issue with Lewis Hamilton nearly winning the championship in his rookie year (until racist crowds in Spain raised the issue all over again).

It's not time, yet, for Indycar to move beyond the gender issue, though. As the Champ Car World Series merges back into the Indycar Series (finally, after 12 years), I'm all for exploiting Danica Patrick's wins and losses. Patrick, 26, is all for it, too. While trying to prove her substance as a driver in the form of a victory, she was willing to exploit the style side of the business, in the form of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue shoot. She may not need, or want, to do any more fashion or swimsuit photo shoots; the next big thing is whether she can win the Indianapolis 500 and/or the Indycar championship.

If Indycar and Tony George can exploit those questions, and if they can get more engine manufacturers beside Honda into the series, they should be able to show NASCAR fans what real American racing is all about.