Danica Worship

Danica Patrick, almost better known for her GoDaddy.com commercials than her race car driving, will be making her NASCAR Nationwide debut today in the 300 mile race at Daytona. As happened when she started driving in the IRL the press and race commentators are fawning all over her as though she's the savior of the sport. Mike Finney of Delaware Online has some thoughts:

To hear Darrell Waltrip, a three-time Cup Series champ who now serves as a TV analyst, and many others in the media tell it, Danica Patrick single-handedly saved stock car racing with her sixth-place effort in the ARCA race at Daytona International Speedway last Saturday.

It was the greatest thing since Joey Logano -- or Sliced Bread -- as his nickname entails.

C'mon now.

Here are the facts. Patrick finished sixth in a low-level race series while driving a car that was powered by a Hendrick Motorsports engine and set up by Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Nationwide Series race team.

She finished behind the likes of race winner Bobby Gerhart, Mark Thompson, John Wes Townley (sounds like a country singer), James Buescher and Patrick Sheltra.

That is not exactly Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.

Patrick should have dominated the ARCA race given her superior equipment, or at least given a little credence to the nonstop gushing that TV broadcasters, namely Waltrip, gave her throughout the race.

Alli Owens, a Daytona Beach native, was running third (and a female) for much of the ARCA race, but nobody ever knew due to the oversaturation of Patrick coverage.

It was downright embarrassing, almost as much as those seedy, exploitative Web site domain commercials (I'm not advertising for them) featuring Patrick that NASCAR fans are now forced to watch (and have to try to explain to the young children watching the race).

Now, TV executives are crediting Patrick with garnering the largest audience ever to watch an ARCA race.

Do you think the entire Eastern seaboard being held captive by last weekend's snow storm had anything to do with it? Nah, couldn't be.

Regardless of all the fawning over Patrick, she is not going to take the NASCAR world by storm.

I watched that ARCA race and the obsession with her by the broadcast team was clearly over-the-top. It's pretty much the same thing that happened in her first Indy 500, and you can read my 2005 piece on that subject here. I'm expecting the same today...unless her car ends up in a smoking heap early in the race. That's always a possibility in this race for any driver.

Let's hope the Fox broadcast team can calm themselves down and treat her like they'd treat any other rookie in the race. Let her prove herself before we start engraving her name on any trophies.

And for another view on the GoDaddy commercials, be sure to read this item from S.E. Cupp.