Off-Topic: Danica

Everybody and their mother has an opinion about Danica, and even though I know what they say opinions are like, I still feel the need to get this off my chest.

First off, I'm not going to talk about her image. You either like her or you don't, and that's none of my concern. As for my personal bias, I like her all right...I'm not a superfan, but I'm definitely not an Official Danica Hater by any means. What I want to address, though, are the people that either A) expect her to hop in the race car and win races immediately, or B) think she'll do horribly just because she's only ever won 1 race in IndyCar.

So let's talk about A... On one hand, I guess if I were her I would consider it a compliment that people expect her to get top 10 finishes and win races right off the bat, but as much as I would like to see that, too, I think it's unrealistic. Montoya has said stock cars are the most challenging race cars he's ever driven, so I'm going to take his word for it and not expect miracles out of Danica. I totally don't have a problem with her taking a couple of years to adjust to it, as long as she eventually does adjust and doesn't keep hanging on just because she has the sponsorship to do it (:cough:Hornish:cough:).

What I'm worried about is the people who DO expect her to have a Tony Stewart-esque rookie year, and if she only has an okay year, they'll be haranguing her worse than any other rookie ever got harangued. If she has an awful year, well then, let's call a spade a spade, but at that point I'll still say she deserves a second chance in 2011.

Now on to B: I can't stand it when people let her IndyCar stats influence how they think she's going to do next year. I know she's only ever won one race, and I have to admit I've thought to myself, "What's up with that, Ms. Superstar?" on a few occasions. I know it's harder to pass in open wheel cars, though, and that a zillion other things are different about them, so I find it really hard to pass judgment on her either way because her performance in IndyCars just doesn't translate at all to NASCAR. Bottom line, we'll all just have to wait and see what happens because there's no way to make a prediction about how she'll do based on the past. Period.

Ah, I feel so much better! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...