The big question is this: Can Danica Patrick stand the heat?
Among the toughest challenges facing Patrick, the open-wheel star and part-time swimsuit model, will be the witheringly hot temperatures inside stock cars. She will experience that and more starting Saturday when Patrick, who signed a two-year deal to race for JR Motorsports, competes in an ARCA event at Daytona International Speedway in her first stock-car race.
If Patrick performs well, she could compete in the Nationwide Series race at Daytona on Feb. 13 as part of a 13-race schedule this year. But she will not drive in Nascar’s signature event: the Daytona 500 on Feb. 14. Patrick has much to learn before she steps into Sprint Cup.
But the payoff for Nascar and Patrick could be enormous if she makes it there soon.
First comes the heat. Unlike open-wheel racecars like those at the Indianapolis 500, which have the engine in the rear and no heat-trapping roof, stock cars have the engine in the front, with the exhaust pipe running under the floor pan.
Driving in circles on asphalt in a racecar with an enclosed roof, a competitor encounters temperatures typically reaching 100 degrees. On brutally hot days, they can hit 130.
“She’s going to deal with more heat than she’s ever had to as far as inside the racecar,” said Tony Stewart, the driver who has most successfully made the transition from open-wheel to stock cars. “It’s hard to focus when you’re in heat that you’re not used to. Get in the car and turn the heat wide open and drive around for three and a half hours and see if your concentration is still as sharp.”
Patrick will have to concentrate because she will have to make major adjustments in driving 3,500-pound stock cars, compared with the 1,500-pound open-wheel cars she is accustomed to.
The aerodynamics and handling are markedly different. And the bumpers are there for a reason. Patrick will have to get used to “rubbin,’ ” the Nascar term for using stock-car bumpers to ram into other cars on the track.
There will be many more words for Patrick to grasp along the way, if only to talk to her crew chief, Tony Eury Jr.
“There’s lot of different lingo, which I’m getting used to,” Patrick told SpeedTV after testing at Daytona last month. “Sometimes, I feel like Tony is still speaking another language, but I’m working hard to understand it. I need a dictionary for Nascar.”
In her favor, Patrick will have some of the best racecars in Nascar. That’s because JR Motorsports is co-owned and supplied by Rick Hendrick, the team owner who has won the past four Sprint Cup championships with Johnson and nine Cup titles overall.
But if Patrick can be competitive in Nascar while flashing the combativeness that led to confrontations with other drivers in the I.R.L., she could be the boost the series needs amid falling ticket sales and television ratings.
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