Danica Patrick's NASCAR Debut on Par With Dale Earnhardt Jr., Other Stars

Consider this an interruption to the quick judgments, harsh opinions and commentary overload about Danica Patrick's NASCAR debut.

As IndyCar's most famous face prepares to make her fifth NASCAR start this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway -- near her hometown of Roscoe, Ill. -- it's time to step back from all the emotion and hype.

Forget her $1,000 gold-stilettos, police escorts and the unapologetic adulation of NASCAR executives and track promoters. Let's look at her statistics driving a NASCAR race car.

Patrick's four-race average of a 33rd place finish in the Nationwide Series may be an easy target for those told-you-so doubters, but it's absolutely respectable compared to other recent open-wheel NASCAR converts. And even some NASCAR champions.

Her NASCAR Nationwide Series team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr., for example, either crashed or had mechanical problems in three of his first four Nationwide races during the 1996-97 seasons, including a string of 39th, 39th and 38th place showings after his 14th place debut. That's an average finish of 32.5, or less than one position better than Patrick.

Neither Indy 500 winners Dario Franchitti, Juan Pablo Montoya and Sam Hornish Jr., nor former IndyCar champ Tony Stewart, had a top-10 finish in their first four NASCAR Nationwide starts.

And Patrick's 33rd place average is comparable to Franchitti's, whose average for his first four races was 31st place, and not too far behind Stewart's 23rd place average. She's actually done better than three-time IZOD IndyCar Series champ Hornish, who averaged a 36th place finish in his first four starts.



Share Stewart and Hornish didn't crack the top 10 even through 10 NASCAR starts. It took Franchitti seven races to break into the top 10 with a seventh-place finish. Montoya, just back from Formula One, won on the Mexico City road course in his seventh start, but that victory still only improved his average over 10 races to 19th place.

It's not that Patrick, 27, has performed at a lesser level. The difference is that she's been scrutinized more.

The Nationwide race at Loudon, N.H., two weeks ago was her first since February and the first laps she'd turned in a stock car other than a single, brief test weekend at Milwaukee. Her 30th place finish may not look impressive, but it was her best to date and came even after a collision on lap 7 that eventually put her down five laps to the winner.

"By the end of the race I had a lot of good info I can use next time around,'' Patrick said this week. "We're moving on. It was a learning experience and that's exactly what I need right now.''

That opportunity to learn without unrealistic expectations was given to many of NASCAR's best.



Four-time and reigning Sprint Cup Series champ Jimmie Johnson had only a single top 10 through his first 10 Nationwide starts, averaging a 22nd place finish.

Four-time champ Jeff Gordon crashed and finished 39th in his 1990 NASCAR debut and earned only two top 10s in his first 10 starts in the Nationwide (then called Busch) Series.

Five of Earnhardt's first 10 finishes were 34th or worse and he had only a single top-15 effort in that span.

Carl Edwards proved to be the rare, fast learner. He won in his seventh start and collected eight top-10 finishes in his first 10 Nationwide races, averaging a finish of 9.9.

Patrick is more optimistic this weekend considering she's at least familiar with this venue -- a luxury she hadn't had at her four previous NASCAR starts. She's competed five times on the 1.5-mile Chicago oval in the IndyCar Series, winning the pole position there in her rookie year in 2005.

"I just want to get out there and start logging laps,'' Patrick said. "Everything is still fairly new and I'm still learning.
"The only way to get better is to get behind that wheel and log laps.''