Thursday and the Bud Duels. The races between qualifying and the Daytona 500 to set the field behind the top two from the qualifying. Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson caught those top two slots with Gordon on the pole. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won the first Duel. Jimmie Johnson won the second. There were some crashes.
The second Bud Duel, however, is the one people are focused on from the incident with Danica Patrick and Denny Hamlin. Likely it would have gone down as an instance of pack racing and down force and drafting and move on. The post race confrontation and exchange between Patrick and Hamlin has kept it alive in conversation.
Was the #10 loose already? Did Hamlin get too close in a spot on the track that had already created similar incidents? (Harvick / Logano – Sprint Unlimited) Would another driver have been able to keep the car on the track? Was it mere coincidence that the #11 and the #10 had already scraped up earlier in the week? Is Danica only there to add some estrogen interest to the sport?
It is another tangent of the drama that is Daytona. It should be noted that Danica drove the #10 from the back well into the top 10. The incident with the #11 put her in the back again with a damaged car and time running out and she still managed to get back to a 10th place finish and a mid pack start in the Daytona 500.
Does Danica Patrick have the skill set to run in Sprint Cup? Yes, and that skill set is growing and getting better. She has made mistakes but so has every other driver getting into a Sprint Cup car. Does she grab attention far beyond what any other driver would be getting in her position? Yes. Much more so. The only woman in the field is going to generate interest. There are other drivers with similar Cup histories that get hardly a mention. They have caused incidents and crashes and get some criticism for it but Danica seems to draw the finger for every thing that happens.
“Did you see the ‘big one’ at the race yesterday?”
“Yeah… It was Danica’s fault…”
“Why…?”
“She was there…”
Concerning the post race “conversation” with Hamlin… Yes, her frustration with essentially having to race into the race and having previous damage from proximity to the #11 put her temper on the edge. Any other driver in that position would have had similar words.
Or, because of her gender, would we expect her to throw on an apron, go back to the Go Daddy trailer, make a batch of chocolate chip cookies and invite Hamlin over for “female trouble” apologies with ice cream?
It’s Daytona. Tempers and pressure are up. The first points race of the season puts everyone in a pack at 200mph.
Oh… In case you haven’t noticed with all of the #10 vs #11 talk, some guy named Kurt Busch has been suspended because of some domestic incident with a woman.
Apparently, women are evil. Stay away from them.
The Daytona 500 is set and ready to roll Sunday. If you do have a woman around I suppose you better put her in the kitchen now to start getting the food ready for the “watch party”. Just keep an eye out for the “evil”…