MOTEGI, Japan (AP)—Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history Sunday, taking the Indy Japan 300 after the top contenders were forced to pit for fuel in the final laps.

Patrick finished 5.8594 seconds ahead of pole-sitter Helio Castroneves on the 1.5-mile Twin Ring Motegi oval after leader Scott Dixon pitted with five laps left and Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan came in a lap later.

“It’s a long time coming. Finally,” Patrick said. “It was a fuel strategy race, but my team called it perfectly for me. I knew I was on the same strategy as Helio and when I passed him for the lead, I couldn’t believe it. This is fabulous.”

 

Congrats to her.

I am waiting for Ashley Force to win in NHRA/ Funny car. She made it to the dance, all she has to do now is show them how she can boogie!

 

Sweet It's time for her to win.

 

dont worrie guys i think my future exwife(force) has what it takes this year now that all the butterflies are gone. hey now i can dream cant i..lol


and im glad she finally won a race and disproves that shes there mearly for a face.

 

I don't even follow indy car races,and I was getting tired of hearing about when she was going to win and if she had what it takes!! glad she won,even if it was on fuel mileage,now maybe people will quit talking about it.

 

Congrats to Danica. Its nice to see her finally win a race.

 

Putting Patrick’s victory in perspective
By Bob Margolis, Yahoo! Sports

Danica Patrick’s first IndyCar win in the Japan 300 was more a triumph in public relations than auto racing.

It didn’t happen as the result of a final lap, wheel-to-wheel battle, one that many close observers of the sport feel she will never win.

It instead was more a battle between the race engineer’s computers on the Andretti Green team and that of her rival Helio Castroneves’ Penske Racing team. It was a matter of who would get the best fuel mileage in the final handful of laps of the 200-lap race.

Both drivers had made their final pit stop on Lap 148, and when race leader Scott Dixon was forced onto pit road for a final splash of fuel, it became an opportunity for both Patrick and Castroneves to win – in a fuel mileage battle.


Castroneves is the IRL points leader and was racing with that in mind. Instead of gambling on running out of fuel or making a pit stop which would have had him finishing farther back in the field and scoring fewer points, Castroneves instead lifted his foot off of his gas pedal just enough to save fuel and reward Patrick with the victory.

The win was the result of a well-calculated move – pure and simple.

However, to her and her team’s credit, a win is a win no matter how you get it. And Patrick did execute the team’s strategy perfectly.

In a moment of postrace enthusiasm, team owner Michael Andretti, himself a winner in several fuel mileage battles over his illustrious career, referred to Patrick’s win as being the first of many.

Perhaps. Or maybe it will prove to be nothing more than an anomaly.

Patrick’s win came against a shrunken field of competitors, one which was devoid of the last two series champions (who both left the open wheel series to race in NASCAR), not to mention lacking any of the Champ Car drivers, who were in Long Beach, Calif., competing in Sunday’s finale for that series before the two – IRL and Champ Car – unite for good.

Only 18 cars took the green flag in Japan – six to eight fewer than will be competing when the two series are reunited at Kansas Speedway next weekend – and just seven were running on the lead lap at the checkered flag.

 

You have to be in position to win if the opportunity arises. A win is a win no matter how.

For those who claim that open wheel cars are the real race cars, it's so easy a cave man...........er woman can do it. Hasn't happened in NASCAR yet, and the open wheel jocks all struggle, just like all rookies. So, I guess the open wheelers are the real racers.

Katherine Legge is another female talent. jd

 

Congrarats on the win.

It seems as though a few imply that fuel economy won the race for her. There are just a few other things that can helped too & fuel economy is not a new strategy. Lets just give her a high five for a win, maybe she will get another one as well.

 

Let me preface my remarks by putting them in context:

There are women's clubs for exercising, women's clubs for investing, women's clubs for business professionals, networking, mentoring, travel, women's social clubs, and on and on. There are television stations designed specifically for and marketed specifically to, women.

They all exist because it's generally accepted that many women like to do these things amongst themselves, in a women-only environment, where they can just be women without having to worry about what the men think. And saying so doesn't seem to bother these women, nor anyone else.

There are very few places left men can do anything in an all-male environment. Men's clubs were made too politically incorrect to survive. The white collar work place is a feminized disaster. The media have swallowed the marketing industry's fallacy that women control or influence 80% of consumer spending and so are concentrating on pleasing them (why do you think most TV dads are imbeciles?). All that's left are a few blue-collar workplaces, sports, wrench-turning, and ****.

Getting women into racing won't bring anything to the sport. The cars won't go any faster or turn any better. Once a couple of cuties have broken in, then the butt ugly ones who can actually drive will follow and the eye-candy factor will be lost. And all you'll have left is another men's space lost to advertisers that want to sell feminine products to the growing female race watcher market, and increased politically-correct pressure not to have anything even remotely ressembling old-fashioned content that appeals to men with cute girls, lest it offend the new market.

Danica Patrick isn't just happening on its own. She's not the top female driver that's emerged from a huge grass-roots pool of women drivers slogging it out in the little leagues. She's the product of a concerted effort to get women in racing. Why? So they can enlarge their audience by showing a female face in the field and sell more advertising to female oriented advertisers. She's the spearhead of a concerted effort to feminize yet another male bastion.

For those reasons, I think a Patrick win is just about the worst thing that could possibly happen to racing.

 

a win is a win is a win....go Danica!

 

While some of what you say may be true, not all. There have always been women in racing, several, winners in their field. Patrick had to be good enough of a driver to have been in the front close enough to be in position to win the race.

John Force's daughter is racing because he doesn't have a son. It's an opportunity to advance his racing team by having his daughter race. But, she has to be good enough to get the job done. Who knows, she may be another Cha Cha.

Rusty Wallace's daughter will soon be in NASCAR if she isn't already. And from her past accomplishements, she should be better than her dip**** brother Steve who should pray every night that the safer barriers are in place.

It takes millions and millions of dollars to fund the teams these ladies are involved with. If they can bring in the money, it keeps the teams and sport going.

As far as I am concerned, I would rather have the women than the foriegners from IRL.

I could be wrong, but I don't think there will be a mad rush for women getting into motorsports, and even if they do, they will never be a threat. jd

 

Don't forget Shirley Muldowney. She earned her place in drag racing history. That woman was no 'fluke'

 

Yep, here we go with the advertising hoopla:

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/default.asp

 

****? Without women?
I'll take a "feminized" workplace over that one any day of the week ,thank you.