Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Daytona 500 win was a major headline, but if you are looking for gross racing news tonnage, give the early season nod to Stewart-Haas Racing.
This actually started last season with news occasional bad-boy and former NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Kurt Busch and front-runner Kevin Harvick were heading over to join Tony Stewart and Danica Patrick at Stewart-Haas Racing.
All these personalities and egos on one team was a news bonanza waiting to happen.
Things started to boil right before the season-launching Daytona 500, when our friends and partners at The Canadian Motorsports Expo decided bringing in NASCAR “King” Richard Petty would be a good idea.
How right they were.
In the media scrum with Petty, The Toronto Star’s Norris McDonald asked if he thought Danica Patrick would ever win a NASCAR race.
Petty, with that patented grin drawled “Yeah … as long as everybody else stays home. If she was a male, nobody would pay any attention to her.”
Petty’s answer created an over-blown firestorm of media coverage that extended far beyond the boundaries of the racing world.
Even NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams ran the story. Was Petty sexist? Was the seven-time Daytona 500 winner out of bounds with his rebuke of Patrick?
Patrick and I took the same stance. The King is entitled to his opinion and his NASCAR royalty status allows him to say pretty much what he wants, understanding this was all marvelous publicity for Patrick, Petty and NASCAR on the eve of their biggest race.
It was also invaluable coverage for Stewart-Haas. “Smoke’s” driver stable was already making waves, and the season hadn’t even started.
Patrick does need to get a lot more competitive before she can challenge for wins, but as the photo shows, this is where Miss Patrick wins and where NASCAR and the sport wins. She’s a role model for countless young ladies to strive for their goals and dreams.
This little girl is not only a Patrick fan, she’s now a racing fan and that’s the key to racing’s future. Patrick knows that and stops to make sure she gets an autograph.
Even Petty admits she’s fabulous for NASCAR’s image, and no goofy The King versus Danica gimmick race is ever going to change that.
So the Patrick-Petty tussle got it started, before Harvick went to work and wins the second race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season, dominating at Phoenix and making the move from Richard Childress look like pure gold.
Less than a week later Kurt Busch generated even more headlines for the team, confirming he will attempt “The Double” — the Indy 500 for Michael Andretti and the NASCAR Coke 600 at Charlotte later that same day for Stewart-Haas, a grand total of 1,000 miles of racing and media attention in two vastly different forms of machinery.
Of the three drivers who have attempted “The Double,” Robby Gordon, John Andretti and Tony Stewart, Smoke is the only one who’s completed the entire total distance.
His results in 2001 were also outstanding that day: a sixth-place finish in the Indy 500, and a third-place finish at Charlotte after starting dead last and recovering from an early race spin.
Stewart’s feat comes full circle again with teammate and employee Busch attempting to at least match his boss’ numbers, to say nothing about the value it brings IndyCar to have a NASCAR star cross over to the open-wheel world.
In essence, Stewart-Haas Racing is currently the darling of two major sanctioning bodies at the same time.
If the team was paid by their sponsors per word of media coverage, Smoke and company would have enough cash flow to race the next decade free and clear.
Tale Wags:
We are thrilled to announce News 95.7 Halifax has re-joined the Raceline Radio Network. That brings us to 16 affiliates across Canada, and 21 airings a week … Canadian Motor Speedway works through the winter interviewing architects to take Jeff Gordon’s track design to blueprints. Work on the Fort Erie site resumes when the ground thaws in the spring.