Indy 500 win would make Danica Patrick even bigger

INDIANAPOLIS | It took a bit of effort for Danica Patrick to get settled into her chair in an infield chalet Thursday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As she wiggled into a comfort zone, her stare was fixed on the ground. There was not a hint of a smile on her face.

Instead, Patrick looked tired — sounded tired, too. Her words came slowly. She seemed more like a woman coming off the night shift than a 26-year-old racer on a warm spring Midwest day.

“I’m very tired,” she said. “Very tired today.”

Life for the most popular open-wheel driver in North America has been more a meat grinder the last six weeks than a Sleep Number bed commercial. All because of a victory April 19 in Japan while many race fans in the United States were asleep or trying to get to sleep.

Imagine how it will be if Patrick wins Sunday’s 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500.

A lot of people are doing just that this weekend — imagining how the sport would be affected by a Patrick victory in the biggest open-wheel race in the world.

Don Hinchey, vice president of communications for the Bonham Group, a Denver-based global sports and entertainment marketing firm, said that a victory Sunday would make Patrick, “Jordanesque or Tiger Woods.”

And the thought of that even has competitors thinking nice thoughts.

“You know,” said Mike Hull, general manager of the Target Chip Ganassi team that employs front-row starters Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon, “I would prefer that one of our guys win. But it (a Patrick victory) would probably help everybody.”

Patrick has been helping the IndyCar series ever since she arrived on the scene in 2005.

When it was announced that she would drive an IndyCar for the team owned by Bobby Rahal and David Letterman that year, the buzz was immediate. Patrick would not be the first woman to drive in the series, but there was something different about her.

Patrick had a strong background of open-wheel racing and had done well competing in the ultratough European Formula series that are the traditional path to Formula One.

And, Patrick was more glamorous, more photogenic than the women who had preceded her to IndyCar. Her appeal was more broad-based. She appealed to kids and she appealed to their parents — especially males.

On a strong team, Patrick was good on the track right away. She won three poles her first year and led the Indy 500 with 11 laps to go. She wound up fourth, but Danica-mania had kicked up to a higher gear.

For the next couple of years, Patrick was good but never got to victory lane. Some people talked about how she was a fad, some talked about how she just needed more time, and some talked about how she never would get a victory.

Bottom line, however, was that people talked.

Then came last month and the race in Japan. Patrick blew past two-time Indy 500 winner and one-time winner of “Dancing with the Stars” Helio Castroneves with a couple of laps to go and became the first woman to win a major open-wheel event.

Danica-mania became Danica-mega-mania.

John Griffin, vice president of public relations for the Indy Racing League, said at Kansas Speedway that the week after her victory in Japan, Patrick sold more than $100,000 worth of merchandise.

“That is far and away better than anybody has done in a single weekend in this series,” Griffin said.

This month at Indy, she has been fast in practice and was fifth fastest in qualifying. She will start Sunday’s Indy 500 from the middle of the second row. Combined with the fact that she has not finished worse than eighth at Indy, some are predicting she will become the first woman to win the prestigious race.

Patrick was asked whether she has thought about what it would mean to win on Sunday.

“Of course,” she said. “It’s the Indy 500. But the only thing I can imagine is victory lane, drinking the milk, the whole extravaganza afterward. But what happens after that is different for everyone, and there is no way to tell how big it will be or what exactly will come as a result.”

Her Andretti Green Racing teammate, Tony Kanaan, also said he had a hard time pondering the scope of what will happen if Patrick won at Indy.

“None of us have any idea how big that would be,” Kanaan said. “She does that, it will be crazy.”

It would be crazy, Hinchey said, on a worldwide scale.

“Her star already shines bright in North America,” said Hinchey, whose clients include IBM and Citgo. “A win in the Indy 500 and she would take on a planetary glow.Everybody loves the Indy 500. Open-wheel racing’s popularity is a global phenomenon. There is no question about it. A victory would boost its exposure to a level we haven’t seen in decades.”

Former driver Eddie Cheever Jr., winner of the 1998 Indy 500, said that’s true. He was in Italy the day after Patrick’s recent victory in Japan. He said the story was on the front page of the newspaper — a place normally reserved, he said, for soccer, Ferrari and the Pope.

“That is groundbreaking,” Cheever said. “That’s enormous.”

The IndyCar series is already on a high. The season began with news that the series would unify with the Champ Car World Series — the other North American open-wheel series with which IndyCar had been viciously feuding the last 12 years.

Then, in the second race of the season, 19-year-old American Graham Rahal won in St. Petersburg, Fla. And then came Patrick’s win at Japan. Suddenly, the series has some young, American star power mixing in with marketable foreign personalities.

“We’ve got young Rahal,” said Roger Penske, owner of Team Penske, “certainly Danica has done a good job, we’ve got young (Marco) Andretti, certainly the (Scott) Dixons, the (Dan) Wheldons and (Helio) Castroneves to name a few. We need some more, but hopefully … we have a tangible magnet to grow the series.”

Series growth can also be quantified by television numbers. Ratings are up for races this year. ESPN/ABC, which will broadcast Sunday’s race, expects more good ratings for the Indy 500.

“Danica,” Jed Drake, senior vice president and executive producer for ESPN, said when asked about the difference. “We have a wonderful confluence of reunification, a next generation of drivers and the inevitable and omnipresent story of Danica Patrick.”

Nobody is suggesting that NASCAR’s dominance is going to be toppled anytime soon. But almost everybody is suggesting that IndyCar’s time is now — and mostly because of a 5-foot-2, 100-pound woman from Roscoe, Ill.

To reach Jim Pedley, motorsports writer for The Star, send e-mail to jpedley@kcstar.com