My boys are very into Nascar racing, and they know every driver and their number/sponsors by heart. They have their favorites, but Danica Patrick is not one of them. In fact, they sort of consider her a joke. She has never won a big race, she seems to never finish in the top ten. But she is the person I root for in every race, and I hope to change their opinion of her. Although I do have to admit there are differences in males and females that might predispose either sex to do better in certain sports, there are always exceptions to that rule.
Race car driving at the professional level is an intense and totally adrenaline-filled exercise. As Jeff Gordon stated after trying to fill in for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. last week after retiring at the end of last year, it is physically challenging, and even more mentally hard than he remembered. He was visibly shaken after doing his first test drive, having jumped in cold turkey from his cushy announcing job. Just the fact that a female can race at that level, week after week, and stay competitive blows me away. In a race about a month ago I saw her crash into the wall so hard I wondered if she would get out of the car. She did, and walked over the the other drivers who crashed to see if they were ok before stumbling over to the ambulance. But there she was the next week, ready to go again.
Who would have thought that the sport made fun of all these years as being "red-neck" would be so forward-thinking as to allow a female to race with the boys? I heard a grown man at my work this week state that one of the drivers must've known he was in trouble because he was "in the back with Danica". I don't get it. He has a 20-something-year-old daughter. If we have daughters, nieces or granddaughters and we want them to know that they can do or be anything their hearts desire, shouldn't we all be rooting for her?
