The Danica-Free 500

The actual name is the Daytona 500, but given the media attention to the female rookie better known for salacious GoDaddy.com ads, it's going to be a relief to hear a race in which we don't have to be told everything going on in the life of the driver running 35th:

What rubs people the wrong way isn't Patrick herself, but the feeling some have that this stock-car experience is being used explicitly to expand her brand name, and the impression that television is blindly helping her do just that. Nothing has ruffled more feathers at Daytona than an ESPN promo for Saturday's Nationwide event, which featured an image of only one driver. Hint: It wasn't Tony Stewart, who won Saturday for the fifth time in six years.

"The only thing I will say is that TV has been doing a horrible job because they've been covering her way too much, which isn't a problem. That's fine," defending Nationwide champion Kyle Busch said. "You've got all these people watching TV, and they want to hear about Danica. Well then, take advantage of that and show the less funded-team, the underprivileged people that want to have funding so they can race the rest of the year. Danica is only going to be here for 12 races or whatever it is this year. It would help the rest of those teams that want to try to make a full run at it get the coverage that they need and the exposure that they deserve to try to race the full season. Just my opinion."

For its part, ESPN makes no apologies for centering its coverage around a driver who had never started a NASCAR race before Saturday, although that focus clearly shifted to the series regulars after Patrick slid into the wall trying to avoid an accident in front of her 68 laps into the event.

"First and foremost, it's about racing in Daytona. It's the biggest race for a lot of people," said Rich Feinberg, the network's vice president for motorsports. "You win at Daytona and things change for you. And that's going to be our primary thing. After that, the next biggest story, and quite frankly opportunity for all of us, is Danica. It's our strong belief that there will be people that turn on Saturday's Nationwide telecast that perhaps don't watch a lot of Nationwide races or NASCAR at all, because of the interest in her. We want to serve that curiosity."

If that crowd around the merchandise hauler is any indication, the curiosity is clearly there. Maybe that will change after Saturday, when Patrick faded to the rear of the field early in her Nationwide debut, struggled in the draft, and showed just how steep her NASCAR learning curve might be. But odds are next week's event in Southern California will be another Patrick frenzy, this one fed by West Coast media that wasn't in Daytona. Odds are the attention will spike again when she returns to NASCAR in June after her four-month open-wheel break. Daytona is the big show, to be sure, and her marketing team is milking it for everything it's worth. But Daytona is just a taste.

Still, all-Danica-all-the-time clearly has a rankling effect. You hear plenty of jokes this week about his DIS now stands for Danica International Speedway, or how the television network airing the Nationwide event should be renamed DSPN, or how the city should just change its name to Danica Beach. When Kurt Busch appeared in the media center on Friday, one writer asked if the interview session would be transcribed. "If Danica were here, it would be transcribed," Busch quipped. And via Twitter, there was this snarky broadside from Scott Speed: "According to the 'media' not only is Danica the most amazing racing driver since Dale [Earnhardt] Sr. but she is also related to Jesus."

So yes, maybe there's a little resentment. There are those who see the attention Patrick is receiving, and wonder when a sixth-place finish in an ARCA race was enough to make someone a folk hero. There are those who point to the fact that she's competing in just 13 Nationwide events, and is going to disappear for four months after Las Vegas, as evidence that this is little more than a marketing venture. There are NASCAR veterans who have been affiliated with race-winning and championship organizations, and see the paparazzi-like circus that surrounds Patrick's Nationwide team, and wonder what the fuss is all about.

And yet I predict that either during the pre-show or the race itself we'll get a breathless update on Danica's day yesterday as a pinball in a smoking wreck.

The commentary during Patrick's debut in yesterday's 300 mile Nationwide Race was simply ridiculous. Everything that happened during the first 68 laps was broadcast as though the race revolved around Patrick. I almost had to turn it off. It was as though the other 42 drivers were simply bit players in Patrick's star turn on stage.

And look at this screen capture from the Fox News website:
I've been following NASCAR very closely since about 1996 and I've never known a national media site to run a headline about a wreck involving the 35th place finisher. Eleven other cars were in that accident, and another accident took out 10 cars. No headlines for any of those poor schmucks.

Let her prove herself as a legitimate stock car racer and she can have all the media attention she can earn. But propping her up just because she's a female with a sexy image does the sport a disservice, not to mention a disservice to the real stars of the sport who have actual accomplishments to which they can point.

Right now Danica Patrick is the Barack Obama of NASCAR - all image and few accomplishments.

The Danica-free 500 begins on Fox at 1pm ET.