Tuesday, April 29, 2008
With Ashley Force Winning Too, Pressure Mounts on NASCAR to Get With the Program
NHRA’s Ashley Force makes history, joining Indy-car’s Danica Patrick....and where’s NASCAR?
(Photo credit: NHRA)
By Mike Mulhern
TALLADEGA, Ala.
Hey, maybe Kyle Busch or Carl Edwards has a sister:
So not only has Danica Patrick crashed into the Indy-car world’s victory lane, an historic first, but now Ashley Force, the 25-year-old daughter of NHRA legend John Force, has become the first woman in NHRA history to win a national event in the Funny Car division – ironically beating her own father in Sunday’s finals at Commerce, Ga.
How fast is fast?
You think Danica’s laps at 220 mph are something, Ashley Force clipped the lights at 320.36 mph.
Patrick drives Hondas; Force drives Ford Mustangs.
And where’s NASCAR in all this?
Sitting on the sidelines…with not even a woman active full-time in any of NASCAR’s three national touring divisions.
Ashley Force, John Force’s now legendary daughter, at just 25, spent a day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last month, here chatting with NASCAR’s John Darby
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Soooo it will be interesting to see how Patrick handles herself on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Thursday night XM radio show. And how Earnhardt handles things from the NASCAR perspective.
Not only does Ashley Force’s win put her in the drag racing history books, but it also gives her a 59-point lead in the NHRA’s Funny Car division.
“I’m just happy to win an event,” Ms. Force says. “Being a female, that’s exciting for the record books and everything. But my team—we just wanted to get our first win.”
Of course Ashley Force is following in the footsteps of legendary female drag racer Shirley Muldowney, who won numerous Top Fuel Nationals as well as that tour’s championships in 1977, 1980 and 1982.
It was Force’s third time in the finals, an achievement itself. “I guess the third time’s a charm,” she said. “We knew that if we kept getting to the finals, we’d eventually get one. I kind of hated it had to be against Dad…but I’m just happy to win.
“I never saw him,” she said of the final run. “And I never saw my win light. But they told me on the radio.”
The elder Force, who suffered one of the worst crashes of his career last season, turns 59 next week.
Danica Patrick: and what will Dale Earnhardt Jr.—as XM Radio journalist—ask her this week?
(Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images)
So when it comes to marketing women racers – Texas Motor Speedway’s Eddie Gossage will have Patrick for his IRL event in June, and Bruton Smith will have the Forces at his new $60 million drag strip next to Lowe’s Motor Speedway for his Carolina nationals in September.
But in a NASCAR race on a NASCAR track….well, that remains to be seen.
“It’s an exciting time, with Danica winning,” Ashley Force said. “There are a lot of women in a lot of different motorsports, and we’re getting our practice, we’re getting our experience, and we’re making our way toward those wins.”
Well, everywhere it seems but in NASCAR.
“It’s a good week for women,” Ashley Force said, referring to Patrick’s win a week ago in Motegi. “It’s exciting for the fans to finally have a woman winner in Funny Car.”
And how long might that take in NASCAR?
Okay, Junior: Show us what you’ve got as a journalist—break a Danica story for us
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
Richmond, this weekend’s Sprint Cup tour stop, will be homecoming of course for Denny Hamlin, one of the hot drivers this season, and now a man who appears to have put all that bad luck behind him.
Hamlin, third in Sunday’s Talladega 500, says he’s glad his luck is turning: “At Daytona we had a race-winning car, ran up front, but had an incident on pit road. In California we hit the water and were the first ones out.
“After that we’ve really run well. At Atlanta we had a shot to win; Kyle won, but we lost power steering.
“And after that, we haven’t finished outside of the top-six. We’ve been performing really well; we just haven’t had that luck until these last four to five weeks.
“Now we’re really showing how strong a team we are….and that all three teams are equal.”
Indeed the Joe Gibbs operation, all three teams, is clicking. And there will be plenty of focus on the Gibbs guys regardless of what goes on on the track, now that Tony Stewart has raised the possibility he may be leaving at the end of the season.
Denny Hamlin, third at Talladega, heads to hometown Richmond this weekend as a favorite, with crew chief Mike Ford
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Hamlin himself has been so aggressive at times, particularly at Talladega and Daytona, his teammates have raised the issue that maybe he’s working them over a little too hard at times.
But Hamlin – despite a brief tiff at Talladega with Busch – insists “me and Kyle have a good relationship.
“He’s the first guy to come up to my window and ask how my car is doing and react to what his car’s doing.
“Me and Kyle have a good relationship off the racetrack last year even before we were teammates. So I think it’s definitely – he’s the first guy that will come up to my window and ask how my car is doing and kind of react to what his car’s doing.
“That’s something Tony doesn’t do a lot of. If you go to him, he’s going to give you all the advice you can take in. But Kyle’s a guy that initiates it, which is really good, because I don’t always initiate things either.
“I think that’s why at times the relationship between me and Tony got stale last year—because we didn’t talk that much.
“Kyle’s been a guy that kept us going this year.
“And Kyle, we definitely know he’s going out there feeling like he has something to prove after leaving Hendrick’s. He’s definitely pushing hard.
“We’re definitely doing our best to try to keep up with the Hendrick’s guys from last year (when Hendrick teams won fully half the tour events and finished first and second in the title race). We’ve definitely taken a couple of leaps, as far as that gap is concerned.”
Will he stay or will he go? Tony Stewart celebrates his Saturday Talladega win with Britney Brewster
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
And Hamlin’s take on Stewart? “We definitely haven’t heard much. J.D. (Gibbs) told us the same thing he’s told everyone.
“They would like to have him retire here, and if he chooses to, that’s great.
“And I think Tony’s happy here.
“But he’s definitely going to listen to anything people want to say to him, as far as their options, because if someone gives them a real crazy, extravagant option, maybe you want to think about it.
“But it would take something really big for him to leave.”
Does NASCAR have anything for Danica?
(Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images)
THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK
No word yet on the Fox-Sunday side of things, but the ESPN-ABC telecast of Saturday’s Nationwide race at Talladega scored big increases in ratings and households over 2007’s event. The Saturday race earned a 2.6 rating, with 2.96 million “household impressions,” up nearly 30 percent from last season’s 2.1.
This Talladega Saturday broadcast was the highest rated since ESPN returned to NASCAR last season. The previous high was last spring’s 2.4 rating at Las Vegas (on ABC).
ESPN officials also pointed to key demographic increases in males 18-34 (up 67 percent), males 55-and-up (up 50 percent), and all persons 55-and-over (up 44 percent).
The average rating for the five Nationwide events on ESPN2 is 1.9, up 10 percent over the same span last year (not including the rain-delayed California Speedway event).
ESPN-ABC is focused on more than just TV ratings – it points to increases in its Internet NASCAR programming too, up 32 percent this season.
What could be key next: Friday night’s prime-time Nationwide race at Richmond.
ESPN’s TV ratings are up. Alan Bestwick interviews Scott Pruett in Mexico City
(Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Crew chief Bob Osborne will finally be back at the track with Carl Edwards, at Richmond, for Saturday night’s 400. He’s been on suspension since the Las Vegas stop in March, when NASCAR hit him and Edwards with heavy penalties for that loose oil-tank lid controversy.
Edwards won California and Vegas with Osborne on the pit box; Edwards dominated Atlanta (until his engine broke in the final miles) with chief engineer Chris Andrews running the show, and then Edwards did win again with Andrews at Texas.
“It will be nice to get back to the track,” the low-keyed Osborne says. “This team has been strong through the early part of 2008, and I feel we can carry that momentum through the season.
“Most times when a crew chief is suspended, it disrupts the chemistry of the team. But our core group is a strong bunch of guys who were able to continue on with minimal disruption.”
Crew chief Bob Osborne returns to Carl Edwards’ pit box at Richmond
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
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