Woman on pole

turbojunker wrote:

FSP_ZX2 wrote: She has 10 'Cup' races under her belt...all were last year. 11th try she is on the pole at Daytona. How many other drivers have been on pole in under a dozen Cup attempts? Guessing...not many. Perspective--drivers with similar open wheel backgrounds: JPM went three whole seasons, and got his first pole in April of his 4th season (spring 'Dega race). How about Sam Hornish, Jr....115 Cup starts and zero poles. 'Dinger went 87 starts in Cup before he got his first pole (spring Phoenix 2010)...no wins. I'm no fan...but I don't wish any ill will on her. This is the bottom line--She *can* drive.

NASCAR legend Loy Allen, Jr won a Daytona 500 pole in his 9th race attempt. He further validated his driving talent by DNQing 12 times later that season.

That was on Hoosier tires...and somewhat controversial. That said, he did get 2 or 3 more poles that season as well.

Lesley wrote: Is that the dude with the great big teeth who does back flips off his car?

Yes it is. He's, uh, kind of a fitness buff too.

Tony Stewart gives me hope. I'm afraid I'm much closer to his body double than Carl's. But I'm going to have to work on that. Not a ton more weight to take off the car! Before I started spending all my time and money on that thing, I used to be a runner. Now I'm just a fat autocrosser.

fasted58 wrote:

Volvo122 wrote:

BARNCA wrote: Courtney Force qualified number one this weekend in a car that is about 8 thousand times harder to drive....

Very cool!

And if she was just a Courtney Smith who started in Jr. Dragsters and was even that berkeleying good she might advance to Econo-dragsters w/ in several years providing life doesn't get in the way. Daddy John Force had a lot to do w/ that... no wait, he had everything to do with that.

Shirley had alot of help from Connie Kallitta early in her career. Courtney only has to be good for 1000' or so. Where does Michele Moton (sp) fit in all of this?

fast_eddie_72 wrote:

Lesley wrote: Is that the dude with the great big teeth who does back flips off his car?

Yes it is. He's, uh, kind of a fitness buff too. Tony Stewart gives me hope. I'm afraid I'm much closer to his body double than Carl's. But I'm going to have to work on that. Not a ton more weight to take off the car! Before I started spending all my time and money on that thing, I used to be a runner. Now I'm just a fat autocrosser.

LOL. I used to be a world-class swimmer...probably could have held my own with Carl. Now I look like Tony...just a foot taller, or so.

Lesley wrote: Is that the dude with the great big teeth who does back flips off his car?

yep

Looks much better with his clothes off

mazdeuce wrote: In reply to Javelin: But she was a big deal. Got sponsors. Had a movie made about her. Danica is in the news because she's racing right now. I doubt that Danica will ever be talked about in the same breath as Shirley when it comes to the great women of racing, but since this is a current event, wouldn't it make sense that it's in the news now?

Then where was all the mainstream media news when Angelle was winning three Pro Stock bike titles? Surely that was a bigger deal than Danica starting at Indy. Or when the Force girls were winning the Alcohol championships? And now that Brittany poled at the Winternats? Where was all the coverage about Sarah Fisher, an Indy racer before and during Danica's reign who's been arguably more successful? What about DTM driver Wolff who's testing in F1 this year? Vanina Ickx and her Top 10 overall at LeMans in 2011?

Javelin wrote:

mazdeuce wrote: In reply to Javelin: But she was a big deal. Got sponsors. Had a movie made about her. Danica is in the news because she's racing right now. I doubt that Danica will ever be talked about in the same breath as Shirley when it comes to the great women of racing, but since this is a current event, wouldn't it make sense that it's in the news now?

Then where was all the mainstream media news when Angelle was winning three Pro Stock bike titles? Surely that was a bigger deal than Danica starting at Indy. Or when the Force girls were winning the Alcohol championships? And now that Brittany poled at the Winternats? Where was all the coverage about Sarah Fisher, an Indy racer before and during Danica's reign who's been arguably more successful? What about DTM driver Wolff who's testing in F1 this year? Vanina Ickx and her Top 10 overall at LeMans in 2011?

I think the bottom line is Danica has done it better, plain and simple. Should we hate her for being good at not just the driving, but also the business of racing? I have a feeling that a lot of the more racy stuff she does is driven by Go Daddy anyway. There are a lot of people behind any successful personality, and she just ends up doing it better than most.
But I would have to respectfully disagree about some of your comparisons. The Force girls and Angelle have been heavily promoted within the realm of NHRA racing, but as much as I am a fan of drag racing, the NHRA isn't NASCAR, and it doesn't normally make it into main stream news unless there is a big crash, like Antron's this past weekend. And Sarah Fisher was never very successful as a driver, so why would she get hyped? Danica in comparison may not have won a lot of races, but she was often competitive when she was in Indycar.
Here's the thing we have to remember. This is her first full season of Sprint Cup and she took the pole for their biggest race. Why wouldn't that get hyped? Before she ran stock cars, she ran in the highest level of open wheel racing in this country (at the time, anyway), not Indy Lights, which is what I'd compare Top Alcohol to. If you look at the other drivers that over the years have switched from open wheel to stock cars, they haven't been that successful, or if they have, it's taken them a lot of time to get there. I'm not a fan of Danica in particular, but this was an accomplishment that was news worthy, whether she is a woman or not.

In reply to bravenrace:

Absolutely.

Javelin wrote:

mazdeuce wrote: In reply to Javelin: But she was a big deal. Got sponsors. Had a movie made about her. Danica is in the news because she's racing right now. I doubt that Danica will ever be talked about in the same breath as Shirley when it comes to the great women of racing, but since this is a current event, wouldn't it make sense that it's in the news now?

Then where was all the mainstream media news when Angelle was winning three Pro Stock bike titles? Surely that was a bigger deal than Danica starting at Indy. Or when the Force girls were winning the Alcohol championships? And now that Brittany poled at the Winternats? Where was all the coverage about Sarah Fisher, an Indy racer before and during Danica's reign who's been arguably more successful? What about DTM driver Wolff who's testing in F1 this year? Vanina Ickx and her Top 10 overall at LeMans in 2011?

NASCAR does a better job of marketing ? .... more NASCAR coverage on TV ? etc...etc ....

bravenrace wrote:

Javelin wrote:

mazdeuce wrote: In reply to Javelin: But she was a big deal. Got sponsors. Had a movie made about her. Danica is in the news because she's racing right now. I doubt that Danica will ever be talked about in the same breath as Shirley when it comes to the great women of racing, but since this is a current event, wouldn't it make sense that it's in the news now?

Then where was all the mainstream media news when Angelle was winning three Pro Stock bike titles? Surely that was a bigger deal than Danica starting at Indy. Or when the Force girls were winning the Alcohol championships? And now that Brittany poled at the Winternats? Where was all the coverage about Sarah Fisher, an Indy racer before and during Danica's reign who's been arguably more successful? What about DTM driver Wolff who's testing in F1 this year? Vanina Ickx and her Top 10 overall at LeMans in 2011?

I think the bottom line is Danica has done it better, plain and simple. Should we hate her for being good at not just the driving, but also the business of racing? I have a feeling that a lot of the more racy stuff she does is driven by Go Daddy anyway. There are a lot of people behind any successful personality, and she just ends up doing it better than most. But I would have to respectfully disagree about some of your comparisons. The Force girls and Angelle have been heavily promoted within the realm of NHRA racing, but as much as I am a fan of drag racing, the NHRA isn't NASCAR, and it doesn't normally make it into main stream news unless there is a big crash, like Antron's this past weekend. And Sarah Fisher was never very successful as a driver, so why would she get hyped? Danica in comparison may not have won a lot of races, but she was often competitive when she was in Indycar. Here's the thing we have to remember. This is her first full season of Sprint Cup and she took the pole for their biggest race. Why wouldn't that get hyped? Before she ran stock cars, she ran in the highest level of open wheel racing in this country (at the time, anyway), not Indy Lights, which is what I'd compare Top Alcohol to. If you look at the other drivers that over the years have switched from open wheel to stock cars, they haven't been that successful, or if they have, it's taken them a lot of time to get there. I'm not a fan of Danica in particular, but this was an accomplishment that was news worthy, whether she is a woman or not.

for those thinking this is over hyped ( maybe a little) but think back to the coverage of the '11 Daytona 500 .. and the hype/coverage that Trevor Bayne received ... when it's something new/hasn't been done before/unusual then the NASCAR publicity machine goes into overdrive ... couple that with her publicity machine .....

Javelin wrote: Then where was all the mainstream media news when Angelle was winning three Pro Stock bike titles? Surely that was a bigger deal than Danica starting at Indy. Or when the Force girls were winning the Alcohol championships? And now that Brittany poled at the Winternats? Where was all the coverage about Sarah Fisher, an Indy racer before and during Danica's reign who's been arguably more successful? What about DTM driver Wolff who's testing in F1 this year? Vanina Ickx and her Top 10 overall at LeMans in 2011?

None of those things are mainstream EXCEPT Danica on the pole at Daytona.

To 99% of people in this country, girls winning Alcohol championships happens in Cancun on spring break and their parents are happy they aren't pregnant when they get back.

NASCAR is the largest spectator sport in America. By that yard stick, this is like a woman being drafted by an NFL team, then scoring a touchdown.

Is top fuel even on TV? If it is, I don't know about it. And it certainly doesn't draw a fraction of the following NASCAR does. That's not the "mainstream media"'s fault.

I've explained this before and will again. Don't get any weird ideas about what "the media" are there to do. They get as many people as they can to watch so the commercias sell for as much as possible. There's nothing wrong with that and it's very transparent and simple.

Don't want ratings driven commercial news? Watch PBS. The Newshour is still on. You're not watching. I get the overnights. If a reporter walks in and says "I want to do a story about something no one follows because a woman is doing it" they'd get laughed out of the building. But if they come in and say "You know the girl in the GoDaddy spots in the Superbowl? She just won the poll at Daytona" there's little question it should get time. None of you would do it any different if your livelyhood depended on it. Like telling someone at Sony they should make more turntables because vinyl sounds better. "Yeah, but there's not much market" they'd say. "But we have a moral responibility to lose money making them because it's better." How would that go over at the board meeting?

People watch what they watch. Stop blaming "the media" for giving it to them.

fast_eddie_72 wrote: People watch what they watch. Stop blaming "the media" for giving it to them.

I will blame the media.

http://www.competitionplus.com/drag-racing/news/21968-nascar-nhra-and-diversity-and-the-clear-picture

http://www.competitionplus.com/featured-stories/1043-awash-in-a-sea-of-ink

Excerpts:

Competitionplus wrote: Eventually recognizing the problem, and knowing they had to solve it ... NASCAR announced in 2004, with considerable fanfare, a new Drive for Diversity program ... upon closer inspection it would appear that it’s failed to achieve it goals. Not one single driver who has participated in and/or completed the NASCAR program is currently competing in any of its top three series. In fact, none of those drivers has even participated in a single Cup race, much less the full series. Ironically, ... NHRA receives a handful of calls asking if drag racing has a similar program. Upon hearing that there is no diversity program in drag racing most of those members of the press express outrage and anger – until they hear the facts, which can be summed up in just seven words: Drag racing doesn’t need a diversity program. ... NHRA Drag Racing has never needed a diversity program, period. Other than the protracted battle Shirley Muldowney had to fight before NHRA granted her a license, no one else has ever faced or been forced to overcome racial, ethnic or gender barriers in order to participate in drag racing. From John Kimball to J.R. Todd to Larry Nance, the only thing that appears to have mattered to drag racing fans is whether or not the driver’s a winner. The only colors that fans care about are the green of the starting light and the white or yellow of the win light. From the day Amy Faulk became the first woman to win an NHRA championship (in Super Stock) through Shirley Muldowney’s three titles, Angelle Sampey’s 41 victories and on to the current exploits of Alexis DeJoria and Courtney Force, drag racing fans have not only welcomed women, they’ve embraced their participation. If you’ve ever witnessed a Muldowney personal appearance you’ve heard dozens of women of all ages telling her how her story inspired them to become racers themselves, and how her successes proved that they, too, could make it in a male-dominated activity. Muldowney may indeed be responsible for the fact that there are now hundreds – and we do mean hundreds – of young women competing in the sportsman ranks. -------- One battle the NHRA had no hope of winning was NASCAR’s relentless touting of their diversity program... Every time a member of the media brought this up to an NHRA official – and it was often – the response was that drag racing had never made an effort to formally incorporate either minorities or women because they’d been welcomed and part of the show since the first tire turned on asphalt. Most media reps were surprised to hear that, forcing the Media Department to trot out their long list of successful women competitors, from Amy Faulk to Shirley Muldowney to Hillary Will ad infinitum. When the “minority” question was asked they had to recall names like John Kimball, the Pedregons and this year’s fast-rising superstar, J.R. Todd. And a funny thing happened on the way to Enlightment Land: No minority participant in NHRA drag racing had ever seen the need to highlight his or her ethnicity, and certainly, neither had the sanctioning organization.

The media IS looking for these stories and IGNORING the successes. They are looking for failures.

In reply to tuna55:

Well, yes. But... guess which one sells ads.

"Stay tuned; after the ads: a small corner of sport where stuff's more or less okay with regard to distribution of gender and race."

This is why we can't have nice things... And one of the great aggravations of The Way We Do Things; it's relatively hard to get information that isn't profitable to distribute, and harder still to get it in front of enough people for it to affect the collective understanding of fill-in-the-blank topic...

I blame the media. News media should be about reporting news in an unbiased manner. It isn't. It's about making a buck.

NASCAR does a better job of marketing ? .... more NASCAR coverage on TV ? etc...etc ....

BINGO!. Pole - smole.

NASCAR poles are decided before they even start. Either through "the call" or creative use of the timing equipment. (i've actaully used a stop watch to time pole days and rarely does the pole winners time even remotely match what I get). The pole winner is simply what is good for NASCAR - be it sponsors who want more coverage, manufacturers who want more coverage, team owners who need more sponsorship, drivers who can bring more sponsors, etc.

Fixing the pole is perfect for NASCAR too, it feeds the above matrix and they can't be acused of fixing races.

.02 Randy

RandyS wrote: .02 Randy

.02? Way overvalued.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

RandyS wrote: .02 Randy

.02? Way overvalued.

Nah, there's at least 2 cents of tin foil made into a hat in that post.

1988RedT2 wrote: I blame the media. News media should be about reporting news in an unbiased manner. It isn't. It's about making a buck.

Of course it is. Why should it be different than any other industry? The second that commercial rolls, the reason for the program is very clear. They don't try to hide it. Other countries do it differently. The BBC for instance. And, yes, I would agree, they tend to do a better job of objectively informing people. But their funding model affords them the ability to cover things that may not translate directly into ratings. In fact, their charter spells out that they are to provide information to the public. The closest thing we have is PBS, which is a shell of the BBC model. And, really, since almost all of their funding comes directly from viewers, they have to be responsive to them just like commercial TV.

tuna55 wrote: The media IS looking for these stories and IGNORING the successes. They are looking for failures.

So Danica winning the poll gets coverage because she failed. I get it.

"The media" (which, by the way, is a misnomer. Television is a medium, newspapers are a medium, but there is no collective that would make sense to call "the media") is looking for one thing: ratings. So in content they're looking for what will drive ratings. What will drive ratings is determined by the behavior of viewers. Time and again, controversy, perceived conflict, and turmoil win the day. Of course they go with what works. Why would they do anything else?

They're publicly traded companies. You can buy stock. As a stock holder, you would rightly demand that they maximize profit. If they didn't you and the board of directors would oust the people running it. And you'd be right to do so.

fast_eddie_72 wrote:

tuna55 wrote: The media IS looking for these stories and IGNORING the successes. They are looking for failures.

So Danica winning the poll gets coverage because she failed. I get it.

This is conjecture, but:

They expect spectacular. They overhype on purpose.

tuna55 wrote: They expect spectacular. They overhype on purpose.

Yup. That's their job. They don't pretend otherwise. Why blame them for it? If people stopped watching it, they'd stop doing it.

fast_eddie_72 wrote:

tuna55 wrote: They expect spectacular. They overhype on purpose.

Yup. That's their job. They don't pretend otherwise. Why blame them for it? If people stopped watching it, they'd stop doing it.

I would turn on the TV

But it's so embarrassing

To see all the other people

I don't know what they mean

And it was magic at first

When they spoke without sound

But now this world is gonna hurt

You better turn that thing down turn it around

"Well it wasn't me", Say the boy with the gun

Sure I pulled the trigger but it needed to be done

Because life's been killin' me ever since it begun

You can't blame me 'cause I'm too young

You cant blame me, sure the killer was my son

But I didn't teach him to pull the trigger of the gun

It's the killing on his TV screen

You can't blame me, it's those images he sees

Well you can't blame me says the media man

Well I wasn't the one that came up with the plan

And I just point my camera what the people wanna see

Man it's a two way mirror and you can't blame me

"You can't blame me", Says the singer of the song

Or the maker of the movie which he based his life on

It's only entertainment and as anyone can see

It's smoke machines and make-up, man, you can't fool me

It was you it was me it was every man

We all got the blood on our hands

We only receive what we demand

And if we want hell then hell is what well have

That's very poetic, but what is the point? Specifically who is doing exactly what wrong and, in detail, what is it you'd like to see done differently? I know it's the fashion to be darkly cynical about everything and blaming "the media" is in vogue, but no one wants to admit that it simply is what you all built and there is no mystery to it at all.