As far as her markteting is concerned, you are totally spot on about that as well. The only person who has benfiited from her off-track actions is Danica. IF she actually did anything to help the seires, don’t you think the ratings would be better, attendance would be higher and more sponsors would be in the series. Danica Patrick is an attention whore, more concered with her “brand” than actually being a race car driver. And when she goes, I will cry no tears. Let the doorknob hit ya where the good lord split ya, Dancia. Goodbye and good riddance! to you.

She ain’t a “top tier” driver. Never will be.

Her being 5th in the points standings, just tells you how lame the sport is. The guy in 4th actually MISSED a race. Marco is 6th and he has hardly sniffed a win (or led a lap) for 2 years.

She has done a nice job of collecting points. That’s about it. She doesn’t pass many cars or ever tries to pass cars. She is ultra-conservative, often looking like she is content to finish 6th or 7th. That is not the mark of a “top driver”. That is the mark of a medicore driver, driving for a team that has good enough stuff to get her to 6th or 7th. And she doesn’t truly care about “winning” races. She truly cares about cashing checks and being a celebrity. That is her #1 aim and is no question her daddy’s #1 aim.

She is what she is. And at her age, that is not likely to change.

I can’t imagine how not having all the races on one channel is anything but a good thing.

The ratings are abysmal, almost infomercial level. So far in its 11 races on VERSUS, the IRL’s average rating of 0.32 figures out to less than 240,000 people per race. The official numbers say that the VERSUS telecasts have reached 2,552,000 households and that represents roughly 3,310,000 viewers. And those aren’t average numbers, that’s the TOTAL for all 11 events.

By contrast, this year’s Indy 500 on ABC reached 4.5 million homes and was watched by 6.3 million. The other four ABC races in ’09 made it into 3,710,000 homes and totaled 4,619,000 eyeballs for an average of just over 1.1 million per telecast.

But to the meat the article, whether Danica really means anything to the IRL, I’ll offer this. I often wonder about the health of Indycar racing based on what I see of its fans. I live in Southern Cal so we’re fewer and farther between, but I get the impression that the average Indycar fan is an aging white male.

I think a lot of us ended up becoming fans of a particular sports from our parents. For a lot of us, the Indy500 began as a bonding experience between father and son, either going to the race or watching it on TV. The major sports all easily offer that: they’re on tv all the time, and if you live in a city, chances are there’s a team that’s not too far away, even if it’s minor league or college.

But you don’t get that with Indycar. The events are semi-regular. They probably only have a sort-of local race once a year, and you pay dearly to go to it. It’s an expensive family event. NASCAR runs every weekend.

The result is that I wonder how many children end up being exposed to it, and become fans. I would guess not as many.

Danica does appeal to the young and to women, and exposes people to the sport who wouldn’t normally give it the time of day. I think Tony Kanaan is the best ambassador for the sport, but he doesn’t draw people outside of the sport (not in the USA). Non-fans have no idea who he is.

But Danica is a different story. She may not be fully translating her stardom into the sport, but I think the IRL gets a dividend from it. I also think that the payoff will take some time to mature.

Boost Mobile: if I remember correctly (that’s a crapshoot), Motorola sold the remainder of their deal with AGR to Boost Mobile. Pretty sure that started with the 500.

Which is tougher: driving a NASCAR sled is absolutely NOT more physically demanding than driving an Indy Car. It’s not even close. I don’t know where you got that understanding, but it’s a misunderstanding for sure. You’ve got company though; seems like quite a few NASCAR fans and commentators share the misperception that Indy Cars are about finesse, and NASCAR wagons are about strength, but it would be a lot more accurate to say the opposite. Indy Car drivers are the fittest in all of American auto racing; I have no doubts about that whatsoever.

Back when Rusty Wallace was announcing IRL races, he made a remark to the effect that, “you would not believe how hard these cars are to steer.” So, there’s the opinion of a NASCAR driver.