Tag Archives: Danica

Rookie of the year points standings

April 8, 2013 15:18Leave a Comment

I was curious about the rookie of the year (ROTY) standings so far this year, and didn’t see anything that had them listed, so I went and calculated them out.

The basic premise is this – it doesn’t really matter where they finish in the race, but where they finish relative to the other ROTY candidates.

Highest finishing rookie gets 10 points, second gets 9, third gets 8, etc…

Or in this case, no “etc…” because there are only three declared ROTY candidates.

So here are the standings as of Fontana:

Rookie Standings, 2013

 

Danica Patrick

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.

Timmy Hill
Race Finish Rookie Points Finish Rookie Points Finish Rookie Points
Daytona 500 8th 10 12th 9 N/A 0
Phoenix 1 39th 9 16th 10 N/A 0
Las Vegas 33rd 9 18th 10 N/A 0
Bristol 28th 9 16th 10 N/A 0
Fontana 26th 9 20th 10 39th 8
Martinsville 12th 10 25th 9 N/A 0
———— Standings ————
  Rank Points Rank Points Rank Points
Totals 2nd 56 1st 58 3rd 8

At the end of the year, only the 10 best rookie points finishes will be counted, so Danica could catch up to Stenhouse if he has a bunch of bad days/blown engines/wrecks.

But probably not.

Timmy Hill could also conceivably be more competitive since he is scheduled for more than 10 races this season.

But the bottom line is – does anyone else care?

Posted in NASCAR, NewsTagged , ,

Danica’s old ride

April 5, 2013 08:00Leave a Comment

For the first four races of 2013, Danica Patrick has raced in 3 new and 1 almost new car.

But for Martinsville, she’s getting a four year old car, while teammate/boss Tony Stewart is getting a car built last year and other teammate Ryan Newman is getting a brand new car.

In fact, the car that Danica is driving on Sunday was last on the track in November 2010, more than 2 years ago.

Methinks someone at Stewart Haas has low expectations for Danica at Martinsville.

Full chassis rundown from Jayski.com:

Chassis No. 10-535: This car (formally No. 14-535) debuted in April 2009 with Tony Stewart at the wheel at Phoenix International Raceway, where Stewart used it to qualify sixth and lead once for 19 laps before finishing second. The last outing for Chassis No. 10-535 was in November 2010, when Stewart started 20th and finished 17th at Phoenix. The car was on standby for the No. 14 team throughout many race weekends in 2011 and 2012 but was never pressed into service. Since the end of the 2012 season, it was updated to the sixth-generation (Gen-6) Chevrolet SS configuration and transferred to the No. 10 GoDaddy.com team of Danica Patrick and crew chief Tony Gibson.

Posted in Martinsville, NASCAR, News, OpinionTagged , ,

Danica in the All-Star race?

March 20, 2013 12:23Leave a Comment

I saw a twitter campaign start today for voting Danica into the All-Star race.

Since Dale Jr. won a race last year, he won’t need to be voted in, so Danica won’t have to battle him for the votes.

Does anyone else even stand a chance?

Poor Bill Elliot doesn’t even have a car number.

Posted in NASCAR, NewsTagged ,

Top paid drivers

March 14, 2013 09:30Leave a Comment

So Forbes has a list of the highest paid drivers in the sport.

No surprise that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is #1 in earnings, as he pulls in a lot of off-track earnings. Of his $25.9 million income, $13 of that came from off-track events.

Jimmie Johnson is #2, with $23 million, with a NASCAR-high of $8.1 million in race winnings earned.

So, there’s a general salary, race winnings, paid appearances, and merch. Great gig if you can get it.

Heck, Danica Patrick was #7 on the total income list for 2012, and she raced in only 10 races! I would guess that most of that is NOT prize money for finishes at the track.

Reports are that Patrick’s gear sales went up a stunning 350% since she won the pole at Daytona, so expect to see that she is the #1 paid driver in NASCAR by the end of 2013.

Sources: NASCAR’s Highest-Paid Drivers at Forbes.com

and

Danica Patrick Mechandise Flying Off Shelves, also at Forbes.com.

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Phoenix raceday update

March 3, 2013 08:00Leave a Comment

Roof cams are gone for 2/3rds of the season, starting at Phoenix! An article on nascar.com (shudder) says that removing roof cams will reduce turbulence in the pack, and thus reduce the advantage of clean air. The following quote tends to counter the argument that removing roof cams was beneficial to cars in traffic, but I guess we should assume that John Darby meant the opposite of what he actually said:

“It’s not just about having them all the same, it’s removing stuff like that that gives the leader even more benefit than he used to have.”

Full article here.

In other news, earlier this week on the track schmak podcast, we made picks for Phoenix, so how did they fare?

Rob picked Mark Martin, who is a master of Phoenix, having won poles and races over the years.
He is again on the pole for this race.

My pick, Danica Patrick, is most famous for getting wrecked by Jeff burton and laying down oil
all over the track last year. This year, she “got loose” in qualifying and will start 40th. Her other rookie of the year competition, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., qualified in 12th.

But I have hope. Mark Martin could blow an engine. Or get between Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer.

Posted in NASCAR, News, Opinion, phoenixTagged , , ,

Dayton Ratings Success

February 28, 2013 05:30Leave a Comment

Title from sbnation.com

Fox announced early Monday morning that ratings were up 30 percent from last year’s Daytona 500, a jump that is largely attributable to Danica Patrick.

Title from espn.com

Danica boosts Daytona’s TV ratings

There were a lot things that contributed to this year’s ratings success compared to last year (in no particular order):

#1) Last year’s race was rain delayed and on a Monday night (pretty much ensuring that this year’s 500 would have higher ratings).
#2) The fiery spectacle that was last year’s night race – maybe not many watched it live, but the Daytona 500 in general got a lot more coverage because of it.
#3) New Gen-6 Car.
#4) No more tandem racing in the Cup series.
#5) Big wreck in the Nationwide race the night before.
#6) A champion who, like him or not, is very very active and accessible on social media.
#7) Absence of animated rodentia.
#8) Historic run for Danica, starting on pole and finishing 8th.

While it’s almost impossible to quantify the impact of each of these factors (Danica can’t be solely responsible), overall, this could be the beginning of a NASCAR revival. For the past few years, my subconscious has been adding to the list of “reasons why the next race will be boring/annoying”. It’s good to start adding to the list of “reasons to be excited about racing” again.

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Schmak Unlimited

February 18, 2013 23:32Leave a Comment

In our inagural podcast of 2013, we here at track schmak discuss:

  • the NASCAR.com website debacle
  • our own new and improved website
  • the new car
  • Eldora
  • Danica
  • and umm, some other stuff that I can’t remember

Picks for the Daytona 500:

Coach: Kevin Harvick

Rob: Clint Bowyer

New rules this year – once your pick wins, you are not allowed to use that pick again in the regular season.

Posted in NASCAR, Opinion, PodcastTagged , , ,