GENTLEMEN Start your engines

NASCAR is male dominated everything about it is. Everything from sponsors that are dominated by the hard liquor and beer market, or car/tool based industry to the phrases that are commonly used are geared towards male spectators, male owners, and male drivers. I think women can drive. Some women can drive the wheels off of a race car, better then some men who remain in the pack despite poor performances for the better part of a decade. Am I glad a women is joining the field at the Daytona 500 in 2 weeks? YES! Do I think Danica Patrick is the right one? No.

Why is it even a big deal to have a women in the field? NASCAR is one of the few sports that men and women can compete at without there being an advantage to one or the other. Contact sports and any of the Major 4 plus soccer would only have limited specialized roles on a team. For example in Hockey and Soccer we may see the day when a female goalie comes into the league. Baseball could see a female pitcher. This is not to say that women athletes can't be better then men but despite how good they are the female game is often different and less physical. But in NASCAR its even, the true athletes are Chevy, Ford, and Dodge. Women can do anything in a car the same as men, but there are some fundemental blocks in NASCAR that need to change.

Despite female drivers gaining fame over the past few years, with the likes of Jennifer Jo Cobb, Johanna Long, and Danica Patrick Nascar is still only geared towards male drivers. "Gentlemen start your engines" and "Boys have at it" and "Boogity, Boogity, Boogity, lets go racing boys" are just a few of the common phrases used around the sport that are insensitive to female drivers. If a father was watching the race on a sunday after noon at home and his daughter walked in and sat with him and watched it, is the race as it packaged now appealing to young girls to the point where they say "Daddy i want to do that when i grow up?". I'm not calling for pink race cars like that one in the toyota commercial from a few years ago. But, I think we need to reconsider a few things.

The other thing is NASCAR needs a female role model bad! And that might be Danica Patrick but I doubt it. First of all she isn't good enough. When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier the reason he was sucsesful in helping other black players follow in his footsteps is because he was great. He won the rookie of the year and was 5th in MVP voting by year 3 he won the award and the batting title. That being said Danica Patrick when she joins the Sprint Cup Boys in 2 weeks will be an average driver at best. The truth is she has only won one major racing event and that was in Japan in an Indy car. Shes coming from having raced 2 partial season for a total of 25 races at the nation wide level, with 3 top tens, one of which was a fourth place finish where she beat some sprint cup regulars such as Carl Edwards. But she will not have immediate success at the Sprint cup level. This year she gets a full season in the nation wide and 8-10 races in the sprint. All that I am saying here is she is not ready, sponsors are rushing her and for good reason she brings in money, but she is not ready.

Secondly, if I had a daughter I would not wont her to look to Danica as a role model. Yes she is doing things that people told her she can't, yes she is breaking ground where no women has gone before, but she has also sold her body to sponsors. She has posed for Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition in a bikini and has countless racy photos of her. Other women in nascar like Jennifer Jo Cobb and Johanna Long don't and would be better role models.

All this to say I don't know if she will ever be successful, I don't know if she will have a great following of women in her footsteps, and I don't know if NASCAR will change some ways to make the sport more gender neutral. But it wont be the first time someone will race who I don't think should be there, (Robbie Gordan).