DANICA PATRICK.....Nothing will be the same again!

craig gaines said:

And by the way, the WHOLE CAR has to reach a minimum weight, so the fact she was 100 lbs. was no big deal. :damnit:

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Not including the driver. With the weight of the driver, her car is about 100lbs lighter than the rest because she's so tiny. I can't believe it would make that much difference at 200 MPH, but the other drivers were claiming it gave her a 1MPH advantage. Who knows?

craig gaines said:

PS. Keep your eye on a girl named Erin Crocker, recently signed by Ebernham Motorsports. If that girl can beat Steve Kinser in an outlaw, she can drive. If you don't know what an outlaw is or who Steve "the king" Kinser is, please leave now.

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dam, i just got kicked out of this post.

I was so proud to see her do so well....

I was really thinking she did not have a chance...I mean time trials and carb checks are one thing...

I was particullary impressed when Danica held the car when Matsuura came down on her....awesome! But I think the best racer out there had to have been Helio Castronneves....that guy is AWESOME. Some of the stuff he did is freakish. I mean that guys reflexes are insane!


Sure she did the fuel miliage trick but winning is racing and it's all about the win....look at Helio fantastic driver...pretty good car but he did not win.

Kudos for team Rahal/Letterman for signing Danica!

Great race...best I have seen in years....I just wish Champ would merge with Indy too many for americans to get ....

Bravo Danica...Bravo

jfischer said:

Not including the driver. With the weight of the driver, her car is about 100lbs lighter than the rest because she's so tiny. I can't believe it would make that much difference at 200 MPH, but the other drivers were claiming it gave her a 1MPH advantage. Who knows?

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Look at Kyle Bush........and some of the new drivers in Cup...they are getting smaller...it does make a difference. Like our eluded horses...if the jockey brings less weight ...you got less to propell down the road.

It's the future!

I'm sure her weight had a small impact on her overall speed, (I think the total weight on the cars by themselves is about 1600 lbs, so an extra 100 is a big difference) but she still had to drive the damn car through some tough situations. Besides, every Nascar driver complains constantly about how everybody but them has an unfair advantage. Until every race team starts hireing midgets and quadruple amputees to race their cars, this really isn't a major problem.

Jenns05Stang said:

Let us agree that the 100 LBS, in fact has allowed her a 1MPH disparity over the other drivers. With that agreement made... Let's take a peek at what her 100LBS has going AGAINST her. Her body is being beaten up by G-force alone, and her ABILITY to control herself and her machine under the following physical extremes, tells me that she is a hell of a driver.

1. A driver's heart rate reaches 85-95% of its maximum capacity during a race. This equates to about 150-200 beats per minute, comparable to a marathon runner or a long-distance cyclist.

2. Drivers sustain 4-5 lateral G's in turns and between 0.7 and 1.5 G's while accelerating or braking. A force of 4-5 G's is similiar to having a 40-50 lb. weight attached to one's head.

3. During a race, drivers must discern and analyze numerous factors, including the closing speed of approaching cars, the distance from other cars and the identity of competitors. A driver's depth perception and field of vision is comparable to an NFL quarterback.

4. During a race, a driver's body temperature can reach up to 103º F due to the effects of heat, vibration, and multi-directional G-loading. A driver also may lose multiple pints of fluids through perspiration.

Robby Gordon was the one who brought the weight disparity up, citing an unfair advantage. He said he will not compete in the race again unless the field is equalized. It was equalized, the drivers drove and the sniffiling little child sat out. Hahahahahaha... I have reviewed his comments on his official website. I agree with his stance on the weight factor and physics; however, he should stick to NASCAR. What he is not taking into account is the negative impact that her light weight has on her body and, therefore, her capability as a driver to counteract those affects... Physics?.. Uh huh....

Jenn

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Actually, the smaller you are, the easier it is for your body to absorb the G's. This is one reason you may start to see more female jet pilots emerging.

C'mon now, stalling in the pits is just a rookie mistake. Plenty of rookies have made that mistake before, nothing to be ashamed about there. She's a very talented driver.

What I don't like are how the feminists use this to try and prove that women are somehow equal in physical abilities as men.... that is simply impossible. Even if she had won the race, that's still a score of 89-1 Men. Sorta reminds me of the Boston/Yankees debate. Boston has finally won a World Championship and now everyone thinks Boston is somehow a better team... they're now. The score is still 27-2 Yankees.

For every woman that you find that can compete with a man, you'll find 10,000 more that cannot. One cannot apply the exception to the rule. We are still the physically dominant gender. That doesn't make men better than women as they have a better under standing of emotion, it just asserts our identities.

I think it's awesome that Danica can compete out there with the best of them. I just think many feminists/misandrists use exceptions to the rule like Danica to push their own agendas forward.

On a side note, sacha is 100% wrong about a "smaller" body being able absorb G-force better. If ya knew anything about military piloting at all, you would know that they are in the gym nearly every day trying to develop their abdominial/lower torso/leg muscles. What causes a person to lose consciousness is usually the blood rushing out of your head and into your lower body due to excessive positive (+) G's. This is called a black out. This is not to be confused with a red out, which is a loss of consciousness due to a rush of too much blood to the head due to excessive negative (-) G's. If your lower body muscles are in tip-top shape, you have improved circulation and you can withstand over 10 positive G's with your G-suit on.

Upper body strength is also a factor in preventing black out at high G's, but having a smaller body with less blood/circulation is not. Vigorous workouts, training, and stamina are what prevents black outs, not having a smaller body. If that was true, women would hold the record for most G's withstood during training, not men.

OBleedingMe said:

On a side note, sacha is 100% wrong about a "smaller" body being able absorb G-force better. If ya knew anything about military piloting at all, you would know that they are in the gym nearly every day trying to develop their abdominial/lower torso/leg muscles. What causes a person to lose consciousness is usually the blood rushing out of your head and into your lower body due to excessive positive (+) G's. This is called a black out. This is not to be confused with a red out, which is a loss of consciousness due to a rush of too much blood to the head due to excessive negative (-) G's. If your lower body muscles are in tip-top shape, you have improved circulation and you can withstand over 10 positive G's with your G-suit on.

Upper body strength is also a factor in preventing black out at high G's, but having a smaller body with less blood/circulation is not. Vigorous workouts, training, and stamina are what prevents black outs, not having a smaller body. If that was true, women would hold the record for most G's withstood during training, not men.

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Muscle tone and size are not the same thing. A fit person standing 5' tall will have an easier time absorbing G's than a fit person at 6' tall.

sacha said:

Muscle tone and size are not the same thing. A fit person standing 5' tall will have an easier time absorbing G's than a fit person at 6' tall.

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(sigh) Okay, sacha. I guess that's why fighter pilots and military show pilots put themselves through such rigorus lowerbody/upperbody muscle training... so they can have a harder time withstanding G's. By your reasoning, we should looking for midgets to pilot our fighter jets.

It's great that a 5 foot tall person can withstand G's better than a 6 foot tall person... that is, IF they both had the exact same amount of muscle mass.... say 60 lb. I can see where you're coming from. FOr instance, if someone's head wieght 15 lb and another person's head weighted 13 lb., and they both had the same amount of neck muscle to hold their head up, the person witht he lighter head would be able to hold their head up longer under G-force stress. But that's not the way the human body works. The bigger your body, the larger your muscles are to support you.

Women do not have even 40% of the muscle building capacity that men do, and the more muscles your body has, the better your circulation, the better you can withstand G-forces. So if you took a fully developed female and a fully developed male, you would have anywhere between a 40% - 60% disparity between the two when it came to withstanding G-force. I don't see what's so hard to understand about this.

OBleedingMe said:

(sigh) Okay, sacha. I guess that's why fighter pilots and military show pilots put themselves through such rigorus lowerbody/upperbody muscle training... so they can have a harder time withstanding G's. By your reasoning, we should looking for midgets to pilot our fighter jets.

It's great that a 5 foot tall person can withstand G's better than a 6 foot tall person... that is, IF they both had the exact same amount of muscle mass.... say 60 lb. I can see where you're coming from. FOr instance, if someone's head wieght 15 lb and another person's head weighted 13 lb., and they both had the same amount of neck muscle to hold their head up, the person witht he lighter head would be able to hold their head up longer under G-force stress. But that's not the way the human body works. The bigger your body, the larger your muscles are to support you.

Women do not have even 40% of the muscle building capacity that men do, and the more muscles your body has, the better your circulation, the better you can withstand G-forces. So if you took a fully developed female and a fully developed male, you would have anywhere between a 40% - 60% disparity between the two when it came to withstanding G-force. I don't see what's so hard to understand about this.

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(sigh) someone seems a tad insecure and threatened by women and midgets.

as a 6'3", 240lb male, i have no trouble admitting that women and midgets are more suited to be fighter pilots than I am. i'm not an expert - my opinion is simply based on what i saw on the discovery channel. the navy/air force people simply said that females better are better candidates to be fighter pilots because they're bodies are better for absorbing G-force because they're smaller. since TV has never lied to me before, i'm sticking with that opinion. and haven't you seen topgun? tom cruise is like 5'2" and was the best pilot in the entire navy.

and to get back to the point of this whole thread, Danica Patrick is an impressive race car driver and she is not an exception to a rule. she's simply one of the first to break through a barrier. i think it's safe to expect many more female drivers over the next few years.

sacha said:

and haven't you seen topgun? tom cruise is like 5'2" and was the best pilot in the entire navy.

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Ummm, Top Gun was a Hollywood movie - not real life

Hollywood rarely has much to do with how things are in the real world...

jfischer said:

Ummm, Top Gun was a Hollywood movie - not real life

Hollywood rarely has much to do with how things are in the real world...

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i'm pretty sure he was just kidding around man... But wasn't Ice Man better than him? :OT: sorry

OK, it's late and I just got home after driving 250 miles, but here goes:
Since the reultant force due to g's is proportional to (mass times g) a persons weight, or size, has nothing to do with how they are affected by g force. A more massive person will have a larger resultant force, but it is still proportional. A person's overall condition has everything to do with how a person is affected by g force. There was an excellent article done a few years back when CART cancelled the race at Texas Motor Speedway due to drivers almost blacking out from the g forces. The article discussed air force studies into gs as well

She's the real deal.

Career Highlights

· (2004) Finished third in the 2004 Toyota Atlantic Championship final season standings.
· Led the series with 10 top-five finishes in 2004 and was the only driver complete all 417 laps of competition.
· Tied her career-best finish of second at Portland in Round 4 while becoming the first woman to lead an open-wheel championship.
· Won her first Formula Atlantic career pole position in Round 5 in Portland.

· (2003) Finished sixth in 2003 Toyota Atlantic Championship
· Became first woman in Toyota Atlantic history to finish on the podium with third place performance at Monterrey, Mexico
· Earned career-best Toyota Atlantic finish of second in 2003 season finale in Miami

(2001) Competed in the England, driving in the British Zetek Formula Ford Championship.

(2000)· Finished second at the Formula Ford Festival in England- Highest finishing American driver since 1974 in England’s Formula Ford Festival. Returned to the USA searching for a top open-wheel ride. Had successful test runs in USAC Midget, Toyota Atlantic and an ALMS car.

(1999) Finished ninth in the Formula Vauxhall (Sedan/Saloon) Championship in England, her first full season in the UK.

(1998) Made her debut in England at age 16 in the Formula Vauxhall Winter Series.

· Multi-time national karting champion

(1997) In her final full season of karting she captured the World Karting Association (WKA) Grand National championship, HPV class.

Won the WKA Grand National championship in Yamaha Lite class.

Won the WKA Summer National championship in Yamaha Lite class.

Finished tenth in the Elk Constructors championship in Formula A.

(1996) Established herself as a rising star in the karting ranks by winning 39 of 49 feature races (79.6%).

At the age of 14 she won the WKA Manufacturers Cup National Points title in the Yamaha Junior and Restricted Junior class. She was the runner-up in WKA Manufacturers Cup National Points title (HPV 100 Junior) and the WKA Grand National Championship (Yamaha Restricted Junior).

In addition she captured five WKA Great Lakes Sprint Series and WKA Midwest Spring Series titles.

At the age of 12 she captured her first national points championship in the WKA Manufacturers Cup in the Yamaha Sportsman class.

She collected the WKA Grand National Championship in the Yamaha class.

She won the WKA Great Lakes Sprint Series in the Yamaha Sportsman and US820 Sportsman classes.

She began karting at the age of 10 when her sister Brooke wanted to begin racing.

stangscuba98a said:

and she's cute.....

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Not bad....

Mike Wyatt said:

Tied her career-best finish of second at Portland in Round 4 while becoming the first woman to lead an open-wheel championship.
· Won her first Formula Atlantic career pole position in Round 5 in Portland.

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I was at these events. She has done very well in Portland. Too bad (for me) that she went to the IRL. The Toyota Atlantic serise will be in Portland in a few weeks.

CaptainSaveAHoe said:

i'm pretty sure he was just kidding around man... But wasn't Ice Man better than him? :OT: sorry

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Iceman: You (points at Maverick) - you can be my wing man anytime.
Maverick: Bull $*#! - you can be mine.

Iceman won the award, but Maverick was the best pilot in the end. and yes, the top gun remark was obviously a joke.

I agree with Sacha 100%

Size does matter when your vehicle is fixed in weight what other variables do you have? Driver yes....but she is a proven champion time and time again.

It's not like they picked her off some boxing event card holding bikin clad "excuse me miss would you like to drive a million dollar launch platform"...LOL

But seriously it's long overdue for women to show up in high profile motorsports.
It's the one area I feel they may own in the future...heheheh...