May 4, 2008
Early Days
And yes, this blog has a timeline.
As the month of May progresses, we will look at the progression of Danica Patrick’s career for enlightening scenarios leading up to this year’s Indy 500 as well as current events.
One of the more striking pieces of information is influenced by the Internet age. The blog to the last post became a bit forum-like due to an ongoing mystery, one more often reinforced rather than resolved by Googling.
From the beginning, the author of “America’s Hottest Racer” had trouble locating information about where Danny Sullivan finished in the Formula Ford Festival during the future Indy 500 winner’s formative years. The Festival itself is a source of some fascination, given the participation of a lot of hot young prospects over the years, such as the 1998 winner Jensen Button. In the case of Patrick, there was the inevitable comparison to other Americans. Many have written that she matched Sullivan’s second place finish.
Leaving aside the issue of motive for a moment, the common thread of thought on the issue once Danica became a high profile single-seater driver (i.e. after signing with Bobby Rahal) always centered on Sullivan. But the author could never find any definitive evidence of even a podium finish by “Sully,” as he is affectionately known. The only real information involved a vintage Formula Ford on sale, by a car owner who claimed it carried Sullivan to fourth place in the Formula Ford Festival. (Had he been second, surely this would have been mentioned!)
Colleagues at Autosport Magazine — the King James version of motor racing’s weekly history for six decades — declined to help out the author due to the shambles of the archives and the usual press for time by staffers. Happily, this week the problem was resolved by the discovery of a forum where one ardent soul listed the podiums for the three Festivals run at Snetterton, the first home of the event which moved to the Indy circuit at Brands Hatch in 1976. The cited source? Autosport.
The podiums in 1972, 1973 and 1974, which were double-checked by other readers and had one correction submitted in the forum that was acknowledged by the original list maker, did not include Sullivan. (As an aside, the motive for the listings was a definitive list of podiums during Snetterton’s run of Festivals — not any question about an American named Sullivan.)
There are two conclusions. Just as Danica had nary an offer after a brilliant second place to Anthony Davidson in the 2000 Festival at Brands, her accomplishment was still running into headwinds five years later. America surely had some guy who had done at least as well as that girl Patrick. This became a knee-jerk reaction among the male-dominated “racers who know things.” Well, despite stories all over Google-dom that Sullivan finished second in either 1972 or 1974 (there’s even one story claiming 1978!), no such record exits in the printed pages of Autosport magazine, which assiduously covered the Festivals in those years.
The second conclusion is more important. Last year, Patrick demonstrated the same ability that led to her runner-up spot in the Festival in 2000 during her rookie season in the Indy Racing League. In 2005, she usually kept her wits about her, she didn’t get in over her head on the track, she demonstrated speed in qualifying and an ability to improve her racecraft over the course of a season. She won the rookie of the year versus talented drivers Tomas Enge and Ryan Briscoe — also driving for front-line teams — as a result. It is the same smooth progression that enabled Patrick to crown her formative years with an excellent result in the Formula Ford Festival, which remains a hallmark for future results.
That’s one of many reasons why our inaugural post states Patrick will win the Indy 500 one day, even if we didn’t pick her this year. As we all now know, a high finish in the Festival is not a prerequisite for winning the Indy 500, where “Sully” eventually took home the big prize driving for Roger Penske in the immortal “spin and win” episode. But it’s a strong indication. In any event, Patrick has the high water mark that other future American racing stars will shoot for should they have the ability, financing and courage to run Formula Fords in Britain’s great Festival. Needless to say, when it comes to American drivers and the best finish, it’s Danica’s record and no one else’s.
Today’s Trivia Question — Who was the first instructor for Danica Patrick in Barber Dodge and Toyota Atlantics after she signed with Team Rahal? Hint: this information has been on TV more often than on the Internet.
