Not liking Danica Patrick doesn't make me bad feminist FFS

So Danica Patrick won the pole for the Daytona 500 yesterday, and since I’m a woman who likes NASCAR I’m contractually obligated to have an opinion on this…

You don’t have to be a NASCAR aficionado to know who Patrick is, or that she’s a polarizing figure. I go back and forth myself. While my personal brand of feminism has never been the “woman = automatically good and true and right” kind, I really do feel some pressure to be in Patrick’s corner, fan-wise.

I hear the same thing from other female racing fans. It usually comes from people who aren’t NASCAR fans themselves, and the only thing they know about it comes from 10-second blurbs on Sportscenter. Hey, you’re a lady fan! How ‘bout that Danica Patrick? And when the response that person gets is something along the lines of “SHE’S ONLY EVER WON ONE RACE EVER! AND THOSE GODADDY COMMERCIALS SUCK!!!” – the takeaway isn’t that that being a female racing fan, or a feminist in general, involves a great deal more nuance and personal experience than simply lining up behind the latest “first woman to do X.” Instead, we’re just bad women. When we had the chance to practice all that stuff we’ve been saying about how women are just as capable of succeeding in motorsports as men are, we sold out.

Yeah, well. I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton either.

Let’s think of Danica Patrick like any other driver. I’ve never been called on to explain why I’m not a huge fan of, say, Greg Biffle, or Jeff Gordon. I once heard someone say that becoming a fan of a particular sports team or athlete is somewhere between buying a car and falling in love. Fans may claim that they like this team or this driver because of their stats, but there’s always something intangible there. Maybe this driver grew up in the same place you’re from, or pulled a move on the track you’d like to think you’d have done yourself. Something makes you identify with that driver on a personal level… or not. You might respect the skills of everyone else on the track, but you still have your driver.

I guess that’s the best way to describe how I feel about Patrick. I respect her, but she’s not my driver.

If the ultimate goal is for a female driver to be thought of simply as a driver, then what I think of Patrick’s pole win is just what I’d think of any other driver’s: while following a line around an empty track is an accomplishment (certainly not something most of us could do), it’s not terribly predictive of how a driver or car will do during the actual race. Let’s see how we do in dirty air with 42 other cars bumping into one another for a few hours.

And please stop telling me how I should feel. (At least the LA Times didn’t write “panties in a bunch.”)

Daytona 500 Live Diary

From this year's Daytona 500, originally posted at Side of the Road, aka The Mothership. Read the original here.

The first two hours...

12:03: Both Waltrips are in the booth. What did I do to deserve this? I can’t explain why these two men annoy me so much. They’re both knowledgeable and more insightful then a lot of the guys who do this. But I just can’t stand either of them. Recordings of their voices run in a continuous loop on the loudspeakers in my personal version of hell.

12:04: There’s rain in the forecast, so we need to get a weather report from a weather guy who’s so metro he makes Michael Waltrip look like Bruce Willis. He wants us to know that after this shower there’s a biiiiiig area of “rain-free air.” Please, please keep cutting to him throughout the race.

12:15: Dale Jr. is in the booth! I’m still not sure how I feel about his beard, which made its debut last year. I think I like it. It makes him look older. He seems confident, which is a great sign.

12:21: Ooh, ooh, it’s a commercial for Valvoline NextGen motor oil, which is 50 percent recycled. I just read in the paper this morning that the Roush cars are all going to use it this year. Apparently they used it last year, too, because the commercial’s angle is basically “I DARE you to call me a tree-hugging weenie – watch Carl Edwards win!”

12:24: It’s time for the always-awkward pre-race concert. Ok, earlier this month, a lot of people whined that Madonna appeared to lip-sync during her Super Bowl halftime show. Of COURSE she did, just like I assume Lenny Kravitz is doing now. Stadium sound systems are universally awful, just because the sound bounces around such a huge area. Also, it’s doubtful that they’re really playing those guitars right now. It’s 60 degrees and raining, and those conditions do not make instruments happy. By the way – Lenny Kravitz? Can we send a copy of this to every uninformed blogger/sports writer/commentator who uses interchangeably “NASCAR fan” and “toothless KKK member who only listen to Hank Williams Jr.”?

12:33: Ooh, ooh! The trailer for “G.I. Joe”! Now, I’d pay money to watch Dwayne Johnson read his grocery list, but you’re throwing in Bruce Willis, too? Yes, ma’am. (I have an idea… can we put Johnson and Willis in the booth instead of the Waltrips? I feel like I would enjoy that a lot more.)

12:35: Now it’s time for Mikey Waltrip’s contribution to the broadcast, a segment reporting on the “silly season,” which refers to all of the off-season shuffling of drivers and crew members. It’s actually a nice piece, aside from a really awful gimmick where they make various drivers pretend they’re at a press conference. Painful. Guys, the Oscars are tonight, and there’s a reason y’all weren’t invited.

(About that – Rick Santorum’s campaign is sponsoring Tony Raines’ car today, and so both David Gregory and George Stephanopoulos asked him about it in interviews earlier this morning. Gregory actually asked Santorum which he’d watch, as if you can only choose one, and as if there are deep cultural and political indicators attached to the choice. Well, I’m watching both, because my political identity isn’t tied to my entertainment choices.)

12:38: Trackside interview with Kyle Busch, and Darrell asks him if he’s okay after crashing earlier in the week. Come to think of it, Waltrip asked Dale Jr. about crashes, too, and he spent some time in his opening going over the week’s various wrecks. Why is he suddenly obsessed with this? I mean, he didn’t just suddenly notice that racing occasionally involves crashes. I’m starting to wonder if Waltrip is laying the groundwork to be the eventual chief spokesperson on NASCAR safety standards or something. Maybe he just bought stock in a seatbelt company.

12:47: Interview with last year’s surprise winner Trevor Bayne, who just turned 21 last week. What a wonderful young man. He’s talking about visiting Kenya in the off-season.

12:49: Time for a talk with Jimmie Johnson. (How is he the only Johnson in this sport anyway?) He’s talking about wanting another 500 win – hey, cheating appears to be good luck, so maybe this is your year – in part because Chad Knaus couldn’t be there for Johnson’s win in 2006. He’s “not in any of the pictures.” Um… Knaus wasn’t there BECAUSE HE WAS SUSPENDED FOR CHEATING. Stop acting like his grandma died or something.

12:52 – Jeff Gordon interview… aaaaand the Waltrips want to talk about crashes. (I’m telling you – stock in a seatbelt company.) His family also went to Africa in the off-season – to Rwanda, where he does some charity work. I’d like to add this to the Lenny Kravitz concert footage in that package we’re getting together for the anti-NASCAR bigots.

12:57: Finalmente! The interview Fox has been hyping for the last hour is here! Danica Patrick is the third woman to start the 500, and so of course Darrell Waltrip asks her about her crash in the Gatorade duel. My thoughts on Patrick – it’s extraordinarily hard to transition from open wheel racing to stock cars. Indy cars are like rockets, whereas driving a stock car is like wrangling a baby elephant. So far, I think Patrick’s going about it the right way, easing into the Sprint Cup series and learning from those around her. I’m preemptively pissed off at all the people who don’t really watch racing that often, who don’t remember how NASCAR chewed up the likes of Dario Franchitti, who’ll say horrible sexist crap if Patrick doesn’t lead all 500 laps.

Patrick’s 10 Super Bowl commercials are “the most by any celebrity.” Each Waltrip calls her a “girl,” which since Darrell just mentioned that she’s about to turn 30, is demonstrably inaccurate.

1:06: talking about Kasey Kahne, now officially a Hendrick driver. Mikey calls him a “kid.” So at least his infantilzation isn’t confined to one gender, which I guess is something.

1:10: Opening ceremony… brb.

Aw, Matt Kenseth’s daughter had her hands over her ears. Not a reflection on the national anthem sung by the guy from Train, which was wonderful. It’s just that it’s REALLY loud down there. Also, it continues to freak me out a little that camerapeople are swarming around the drivers and their families during the invocation and anthem. They can’t exactly shoot from far away. That camera is within four feet or so from Driver X, his wife and his minor child. There’s no way, absolutely none, that I could handle that. I would kick someone.

1:16 Metro Weather Guy is back!!! There’s a rain-free area south of Daytona, but still a lot of moisture headed our way. Now comes the time when the Fox broadcast people have vamp to fill the air time. Hilarity ensues. In this case, “hilarity” means “some of the most excruciating stuff you’ve ever seen on live TV in your life.”

1:26: Interview with reigning champ Tony Stewart – why wasn’t this part of the regularly scheduled pre-race program? I love Stewart. He’s so grumpy, and he very clearly has a limit to how much he’ll put up with Fox Sports’ goofy pre-arranged “improvisation.” But it does prompt another good discussion of how last season ended, which was Hollywood epic. Seriously, will not ever be topped.

1:30: Brad Keselowski still looks 12, bless his heart.

1:38: Now the Waltrips are singing. Way to ruin a really fun interview with A.J. Allmendinger, who – alas – got married in the off-season, and not to me. Sigh. One less cute man who’s willing to sing in public.

1:42: Mike Joy says “the ceiling has lifted off to the southwest.” I would’ve preferred hearing that from Metro Weather Guy, but whatev.

1:50: Hmmm… the Richard Petty “King’s Speech” segment is pretty awesome. Great idea, and well executed. Except that “The King’s Speech” was the big Oscar winner a year ago, so the timing is odd. (And there’s also the fact that Fox Sports just took an historic speech that inspired a nation to defend itself in war and turned it into a promo for a sporting event, which is… something.)

The last three hours, or, NyQuil and an interminable waste of time:

2:11: I think I’ve seen Kevin Harvick one time, one of those “walking through pit road” shots. Why aren’t they talking to him? Oh, because Darrell Waltrip needs to talk about Twitter instead.

2:13: Kasey Kahne is still on the market, ladies. If I were at all into Kasey Kahne I’d be really excited right now. Ooh, he’s showing off his knee surgery scar. Man, the track cannot dry fast enough.

2:16: OK, here’s a legit issue with a Waltrip. Mikey still owns a team, one with a driver (Clint Bowyer) in this race. Why is Mikey in the booth, again?

2:30: Still raining in Florida. I’m doing laundry. Here’s something I’m a little concerned about – I’m still fighting off a cold, and I need to take another dose of NyQuil. But the last time I took cold medicine and fell asleep on the couch, I woke up an hour into an MSNBC special on Jeffrey Dahmer… which was weird.

Regan Smith also got married in the off-season. So, stuff race car drivers do: Tweet, get married, go to Africa.

2:35: Martin Truex Jr. is here! He and Mikey shot some new NAPA commercials in the off-season (what fresh hell is this?) – ah, but did he get married or go to Africa?

2:37: FINALLY talking with Kevin Harvick, who shut down his Nationwide team last year so he and his wife could focus on having a baby. (Congrats!) He also got to meet Cesar Milan, and is now trying to pick a beanie weenie-related fight with Trevor Bayne. I can’t really explain it any better than that. That really was the interview.

2:47: Still raining, so Fox Sports decides to put us out of our misery and re-air the last 25 laps of the Bud Shootout, thank goodness.

…

4:31: Well, I’m awake again. I vaguely recall hearing something about light gray skies over toward Orlando, and the jet dryers are on the track. Fox Sports is now going with the Daytona 500’s top 10 greatest moments, which I think is a good idea. You know, I really don’t understand this. If you’re in the business of broadcasting a sporting event that’s routinely impacted by weather, how do you not have contingency plans in place? It’s WEATHER. You can see it coming days ahead of time. How hard is it to build into your broadcast plan what you’re going to do if you have to fill a four-hour rain delay? Whether it’s a recap of the season so far, a rebroadcast of another race or some other special, surely they can have something in the can.

5:09: Cancelled for the first time ever. This sucks. The 500 will run tomorrow at noon, when I’ll be at work, naturally.

Wow, before I could even finish typing that sentence, the Fox Sports crew was signed off and out of there. Isn’t that nice. You expect viewers to sit around for five hours watching your pained interviews with drivers who’d probably rather be taking a nap and listening to Darrell Waltrip tell the same stories over and over about his 500 win, but once NASCAR calls the race, man you guys disappear faster than fried pickles at Tony Stewart’s house.

Meanwhile, there’s straight up nothing on TV on Sunday afternoons in February. I’m pretty much tied to my couch at this point trying not to run a fever, and it’s either “Cops” or that show where David Tutera buys people extravagant weddings up until the Oscars start at 8:30. Yeah, I’m in a pretty crabby mood right now.

NASCAR is for rebels, but only men need apply

Another post from Side of the Road, this one from last July. Read the original here.

Did you ever notice the young, usually very pretty women standing in Victory Lane behind the winning driver, smiling and trying not to get sprayed with beer? Of course you did. That’s why they’re there.

There are three Miss Sprint Cups* each year, apparently. Now there’s an opening for one of them, since this week Paige Duke, a 24-year-old veterinary technician from South Carolina, was fired after pictures she’d taken for an old boyfriend surfaced online. This violated her contract's morality clause.

I have to say… I think this is kind of BS. When she was 18 years old, a young woman took pictures to send privately to someone she trusted. First of all, how awful is it that the pictures had been circulating online this whole time? That ex-bf is scum. Second, what on earth do her actions – again, taken in private – SIX YEARS AGO have to do with her ability to represent NASCAR today?

Sure, let’s all hop up on our high horses and sniff about how she shouldn’t have taken the pictures in the first place. I say again – she was 18. It isn’t her fault the pictures got out. (Once again I have to give thanks for the fact that I went through my reckless late teens/early 20s phase before YouTube and camera phones.)

Why fire her? Is it me, or is NASCAR a hell-raisin’, beer-swiggin’ “boys have at it” culture when it wants to be, and a conservative family sport when it suits it? Back to that asterisk up in the second paragraph… I once interviewed a woman whose family had been involved in NASCAR promotions from the beginning (her father was on the original board), and one of the things she told me was that our local track ditched its Miss Bowman Gray promotion decades ago because it just didn’t present the image they wanted.

But NASCAR’s title sponsor still uses young, attractive women to promote the sport at the track and at other events. Ok, they’re wearing firesuits and not bikinis, but what the hell ever. You’re still using a woman’s sexuality to promote a sport that has nothing to do with that sexuality. But when one of those women appears to have had an actual, not fantasy, sex life SIX YEARS AGO, the Sprint folks kick her to the curb.

NASCAR and the sponsors that support it want it both ways. Drivers can get caught speeding on a public road many times over the legal limit. At the track, they can use illegal parts, beat each other up and get their wrists slapped. But one woman with an extremely peripheral role in making the sport happen gets embarrassed by an a-hole ex, through no fault of her own, and she loses her job?

Unless her morality clause covered everything she’d ever done in her entire life, including for several years before her employment, I hope Paige Duke sues the hell out of Sprint.

By the way… a “morality clause” from the entertainment empire that pretends it was founded by people who violated federal laws? I say again… BS.