Danica Patrick Finishes 4th at Indy 500
Monday, May 30, 2005
Source Mike Kupper, Los Angeles Times
INDIANAPOLIS -- Danica Patrick did not win the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday but, gosh, as she would say, she sure dominated it.
Just as she had dominated nearly a month's worth of practice as an Indy rookie. Just as she had stolen the show with a near miss on pole-qualifying day.
This time, though, everything was for real. This wasn't practice. This wasn't four laps of qualifying, with nobody else on the track.
This was the race, 500 miles, 200 laps around the old 2 ½-mile brickyard, where for years, men were men and women weren't welcome. This time, she was out there with 32 other cars, in front of more than 300,000 fans.
And at one stage late in the race, as she led -- only one woman had ever led before, Patrick, earlier in the race -- after having battled back from 16th place, she had nearly every one of them standing, cheering, waving, urging her on to what would have been the most revolutionary victory in American sports history.
As TV star David Letterman, one of her team's co-owners, pointed out, "She had the thing perpendicular to the cement and still had a chance to win."
It didn't work out quite that way, but...
According to one of racing's oldest saws, "Nobody cares who finished second." Yet when the sun went down over the grandstands, people were talking more about Patrick's fourth-place finish than about Englishman Dan Wheldon's victory -- a legitimate, well-deserved victory.
But then, he had simply won the race. She had spent her afternoon making history. Among her accomplishments:
• She started fourth, higher than any woman before her.
• On lap 56, when she stayed out after leader Dario Franchitti and second runner Tony Kanaan had pitted, she became the first woman to lead the 500, although women had recorded 1,688 racing laps.
• On lap 189, she took advantage of the draft and made a racing move equal to any by any male driver, passing Wheldon for the lead on a restart after a caution period.
• She led three times for a total of 19 laps.
• She became the first woman to finish on the lead lap. The best previous finish by a woman was 11th, seven laps down, by Lyn St. James in 1992.
• She stalled her car in the pits, falling from fourth to 16th, then, in her haste to make up ground, touched wheels with Kosuke Matsuura's car and, later, on a restart, got a full taste of the Indianapolis experience, spinning and taking out cars driven by Panther teammates Tomas Enge and Tomas Scheckter.
"Gosh, did I make some mistakes," Patrick said. "I stalled it. ... I spun. And I can't believe that my car didn't completely demolish because I got hit, like, twice. Spun it around. I can't believe I kept the engine running. ... And I'm going to be real mad at myself for stalling [in the pits]."
But when she was asked if she thought she'd made a point for females, she was quick to answer, "I made a hell of a point for anybody, are you kidding me? I came from the back twice."
posted by aforward @ 12:56 PM,
