SHE'S THE MAN! DANICA PATRICK WINS "HONDA 300" AT TWIN RING MOTEGI, JAPAN
To paraphrase Richard Nixon, "They won't have Danica Patrick to kick around anymore". And in a nation where women are traditionally held in much lower esteem than men, perhaps a few more women throughout Japan won't have to ask their dads or husbands or oniichan ("cute older brother") for the keys to the car anymore ... Now that Danica Patrick has become the first woman to win an Indycar race, and she did it in Japan. (Be sure to check our left-hand margin for an all-new Photo Album featuring Danica Patrick's historic win at Motegi, or simply click anywhere on this line!)
And, oh yeah ... America's best open-wheel racers will once again be competing in a single series
after this weekend, with Motegi the last IRL-only event and Long Beach's street race the final Champ Car event of all time. So, racing history is being made in more than one way this weekend ... And as we watch it all transpire, live and in HD. What a country! (Photos --- Danica Patrick in Victory Circle at Motegi, Japan, and greeting the media following the race).
She's become the first woman to ever win a major open-wheel series racing event, claiming the checkered flag at Twin Ring Motegi, a 1.5-mile D-shaped oval about 70 miles north of Tokyo in a mountainous area of Honshu, Japan's main island. (Photos --- Danica Patrick at speed on the track at Motegi, Japan, and greeting the media following the race).
Patrick ran at a slow, measured pace after taking on the last 22-gallons of fuel in her #7 Andretti Green Racing team car, a Dallara chassis powered by a 650-horsepower Honda engine and shod with Firestone tires. Taking direction from her pit crew, she saved enough fuel to still be running at a fast pace at lap #200, the final lap of the event. (Photo below --- Perhaps some future Danicas arrive at the track).
After the race, Patrick mentioned several times to various microphones that winning "wasn't hard", that it didn't feel any different from running her "regular" race, if the word regular can be used to describe a sport which consists of driving around a race track at nearly 200 miles an hour with competitors of varying degrees of skill. She seemed somewhat surprised by the relative normalcy of it all. Apparently she didn't have to "dig deep" as Indycar announcer Scott Goodyear opined after the race; Patrick learned that she was fine, but that a complete, very serious team effort is what brings a win. (Photo below --- Danica's hand-in-hand work with her pit crew brought her the first victory ever by a woman in a major US-based open-wheel race series).
And her win meant a lot to Michael Andretti, co-owner, with Barry Green, of a four race car team at Motegi
including Patrick. Another team member, Andretti's son, Marco, went into the wall seconds after the green flag dropped and the cars were building-up to high speeds. He probably correctly blamed his maneuver on the relatively cold ambient temperature, about 59 degrees F. As soon as the 650-horsepower Honda engine began putting much of its power to the car's rear wheels, the tires spun and Andretti, who just turned 21, was into the wall, happily with no injuries, other than to the car, which kept him from continuing in the event. This is why Formula 1 race cars use electric tire-warming blankets; to keep the tires at a warm, usable and consistent temperature.
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