Danica Patrick became the first female to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole on Sunday as she won the pole for the Daytona 500. Not only is the accomplishment great for Danica as she gets set to embark on her first full Sprint Cup Series season, it’s great for the sport of NASCAR as well.
Danica Patrick went out eighth in Sunday’s qualifying session for the Daytona 500, and she posted a lap time of 45.817 with a speed of 196.434, which sent her to the top of the scoring pylon. The lap remained atop the scoring pylon all the way until the end of the session that consisted of 45 cars, and Patrick will have the honor of leading the 43-car field to the green flag in NASCAR’s biggest race of the season come Sunday.
For NASCAR’s case, the only thing better than having Danica Patrick on the pole would have been to have both Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Danica Patrick — the sports most popular drivers — on the front row for Sunday’s Daytona 500, but nonetheless, having a driver as well-known as Danica on the pole will bring viewers to this sport on Sunday that wouldn’t normally give NASCAR a second glance.
Patrick, 30, is by far one of the more well-known NASCAR drivers the sport has ever seen as she leads all drivers with the most twitter followers (over 700,000), and we continue to see her face dominant the front pages of newspapers across the land, whether we agree with it or not.
All this week leading up to the Daytona 500 an array of networks, including networks that normally don’t even cover NASCAR, will be broadcasting on their air waves that Danica Patrick will lead the field to the green flag. No other driver could have garnered the attention that Danica Patrick will receive this week. Heck, I don’t think even Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is just as well-known, could even get the attention that Danica will acquire during the 2013 Speedweeks.
Carl Edwards won the pole for the Daytona 500 last season, no disrespect to Edwards but he didn’t receive the mass of attention last season that Danica will receive this entire week.
Just in a matter of seconds after Danica won the pole, the USA Today and SportsCenter applications on my iPad and iPhone notified me that she had won the pole award. Anybody who has signed up to receive alerts from those respected news sources received that notification the same moment I did, and you can only imagine the loads of people it reached in a matter of seconds.
By Sunday evening, Danica Patrick was the No. 1 story on Aol’s homepage.
Having Danica Patrick on the pole for the 55th Daytona 500 will introduce the sport to a new flock of eyes, and when you do that you’re bound to have a few of those brand new faces like the sport and turn into a full-fledged fan in a matter of time.
Many race fans get irritated because Patrick receives too much attention, but look at it this way, at least NASCAR is being granted an abundance of coverage instead of receiving no attention at all and thus becoming irrelevant.
Whether you like it or not, having Danica Patrick on the pole for the 55th running of the Great American Race is a good thing for the sport of NASCAR.
