NASCAR counting on Danica to help steer sport back on track

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Danica Patrick stands by her car as she prepares for the NASCAR Nationwide Series auto racing practice at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010.
The Associated Press

In Photos: Danica Patrick

Danica Patrick at the Fifth Annual National Heads-Up Poker Championship Draw Party at Pure Nightclub in Caesars Palace, March 5, 2009.

Danica Patrick at the Fifth Annual National Heads-Up Poker Championship Draw Party at Pure Nightclub in Caesars Palace, March 5, 2009.

Driver Danica Patrick makes preparations for ARCA auto racing practice at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010.

Driver Danica Patrick makes preparations for ARCA auto racing practice at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010.

Note: Following is the current cover story for Greenspun Media Group sister publication Las Vegas Magazine, available in most hotel rooms in the Las Vegas Valley.

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She’s not big, this Danica Patrick. Just a bit taller than 5 feet. She might or might not be heavy enough even to meet the 110-pound minimum requirement to donate a pint of blood. But over the past five years, she has become a racing giant.

A lightning rod for publicity since joining the Indy Racing League’s IndyCar series in 2005, Patrick competes the weekend of Feb. 26-28 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a weekend of racing highlighted by the Shelby American NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race on Feb. 28. She is scheduled to appear in the Nationwide Series Sam’s Town 300, a 200-lap, 300-mile “support” event on Feb. 27 that serves as a lead-in to Sunday’s Cup race. Patrick practices on Friday, and qualifies on race day for the Saturday event.

Many race fans compare the Nationwide circuit to Triple-A baseball, but there’s nothing minor-league about Patrick’s decision to enter NASCAR competition. Since LVMS hosted its first Cup race weekend in 1998, the Sam’s Town race will likely draw the most attention and publicity (and, likely, the highest attendance) for any nationwide event at the speedway, ever.

“We’re very happy she’s trying this foray into NASCAR. I think she’ll breathe a breath of fresh air into the sport,” Las Vegas Motor Speedway General Manager Chris Powell said. “I agree that it comes at a good time for the sport. Our sport has suffered, along with other sports, with the bad economy.” But even with the dip in the economy, Powell says he expects a near-capacity crowd of 140,000 to file into the speedway for the Feb. 28 main event. As Powell noted, with more than a hint of optimism, Patrick drew huge media coverage during while competing in race weekend at the Daytona 500 earlier this month. “She got a tremendous amount of publicity down in Daytona,” he said. “Most every member of the media is focused on her right now.”

Such attention is commonplace for Patrick, who has become something of a mini-conglomerate. During her five appearances at the Indy 500, her souvenir trailer has drawn by far the thickest crowd and it seems every fan dons some variety of Danica T-shirt, hat or accessory. It’s helped that Patrick has typically run well in the jewel event in open-wheel racing, finishing in the top 10 four times in five appearances. She led for several laps during her 2005 rookie race before finishing fourth, and thrilled the crowd of 300,000 with a strong third-place finish in 2009.

The LVMS marketing team plans to take full advantage of Patrick’s allure. The Speedway staff has been planning a Patrick-specific Sam’s Town 300 promotion, the details for which were not finalized at this writing but which could award a fan a cash prize should Patrick win the race. Billboards displaying Patrick’s beaming face—with no other driver pictured—have been set up around the valley to promote the event.

Across the country, Patrick drives a marketing machine as powerful as her No. 7 GoDaddy Chevy Impala. Her GoDaddy.com commercials aired during this year’s Super Bowl, and she appeared in a four-page spread in the 2008 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue (but declined offers to pose for Playboy, making her the first IndyCar driver to turn back such an opportunity). Her NASCAR debut in the ACRA Racing Series opener in Daytona, where she finished an impressive sixth, drew a series-record 2.4 million viewers on the SPEED racing network. That’s more than a million higher than a year ago, and Patrick is almost solely credited by ACRA officials with the boost in viewers.

Patrick's Nationwide debut was frustrating, though, as she finished 35th in Daytona after running into a multi-car crash on the 70th lap, her Chevy's front end torn apart after ramming the speedway wall.

Patrick is racing only a partial NASCAR season schedule this year and has no plans to participate in Sprint Cup events, including the Nov. 28 Shelby American race in Las Vegas. But she is already filling a publicity void in the sport with the sagging popularity of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Earnhardt (son of late stock-car racing icon Dale Earnhardt) is an enormous figure in the sport.

Problem is, the younger Earnhardt hasn’t won a Sprint Cup race since June 2008 and finished a career-low 25th in the series standings in 2009. He did finish a strong second to Jamie McMurray at the Daytona 500, a race twice halted by a red flag to fix a pothole in the aging Daytona Motor Speedway track.

“His poor performances over the past few years have been a negative in the sport,” Powell said. “He’s easily the most popular driver but he’s not performed well over the past few years. When your most popular driver is not winning races, it hurts the sport, no question.”

Patrick and others have leapt in to fill the void. Tony Stewart, one of the Sprint Cup series biggest (and most controversial) stars, whose history at LVMS dates to the first IRL race in 1996, has also stepped forward to promote the sport, appearing in a Burger King commercial with Vegas headliner Carrot Top. Las Vegas’ strongest affiliation, of course, are two of the Spring Cup series’ top drivers, Kurt and Kyle Busch, both of whom got their starts running at the LVMS Bullring.

But Patrick brings an entirely new, grander dimension, than any current NASCAR driver.

“There have been other females who have driven, but she has had more success. She almost won the Indy 500 in 2005, she did well in the ARCA race in Daytona,” Powell said. “She’s overcome the novelty of being a pretty face who is a racecar driver, and now she’s a racer.”

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