The Herald Bulletin

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July 25, 2008

MIKE BEAS: Danica's blowups starting to look planned

Is anyone else on board with the belief that every Danica Patrick tirade has been scripted in advance by the higher powers of open-wheel racing?

Think about it. Just when the circuit sorely lacks news capable of creating a ripple — which is almost always — Patrick shifts into “Jerry Springer Show” mode and creates temporary buzz for the open-wheel circuit.

Despite the fact that Patrick practically doubles her body weight just by slipping on a race helmet, she wanted to clear Ryan Briscoe’s sinuses with a punch during the Indianapolis 500 before having her momentum interrupted by burly security personnel.

More recently at Mid-Ohio, she engaged in verbal sparring with Milka Duno, the Venezuelan female driver who Patrick accused of cutting her off during a practice session.

In Patrick’s defense, this wasn’t the first time Duno has been categorized as a tortoise in a field of hares. Duno has a reputation for being slow, and inferior machinery and/or drivers have a way of inviting dangerous situations.

Furthermore, no one is questioning the fact Patrick covets the checkered flag as much as any professional race driver. She’s a competitor. I get that.

Surely, though, there has to be some good, old-fashioned animosity festering among the male drivers capable of boiling over in front of television cameras.

Please. Anyone.

Why can’t, say, Scott Dixon make fun of some of the ridiculously gaudy outfits Helio Castroneves wore on “Dancing With the Stars” and Helio respond with a haymaker?

Who wouldn’t tune in for clips of Tony Kanaan beating down teammate Marco Andretti? The thought surely crossed Kanaan’s mind on a few occasions this season, but that little thing called “getting fired by Marco’s old man” stands in the way.

If open-wheel’s male drivers continue to avoid making things more interesting, there are always rival pit crews. Someone. Anyone.

Don’t you wish you could climb inside the mind of four-time Indy 500 winner A.J. Foyt and get his take on today’s kinder, gentler open-wheel circuit?

Fire up the Texas drawl: “Them’s a bunch of pansy boys. I mean, the only one with flarin’ nostrils is a girl. Man, I miss the 1960s and ’70s.”

Perhaps Patrick’s combustibility is by design. Perhaps not. Only open-wheel bigwigs like Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George know for sure, and he’ll never show his hand.

If open-wheel is lobbing buckets of gasoline on Patrick’s willingness to get in someone’s grill, at least it picked the right person.

Cameras shadow every Patrick race-track move. She’s open-wheel’s most popular driver, its most- recognized face, so to think one of her two-fisted tirades isn’t going to be blown way out of proportion is ludicrous.

But I would rather respect Danica Patrick for her ability to negotiate a race car through insane traffic at ungodly speeds than for her streak of bravado.

More and more, that’s becoming difficult to do.



Mike Beas is a sportswriter / columnist for The Herald Bulletin. He can be reached at mike.beas@heraldbulletin.com.

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