Showing posts with label Daytona 500. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daytona 500. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Danica's Star Power draws 14.24 million on Fox Television

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Being a winner comes in many forms at Daytona 500

So she wrecked three times and finished 38th in the Daytona 500, at least she finished and no wrecks were her fault.  Still her impact was up in the stratosphere in terms of the NASCAR television viewers.


Overall, FOX television averaged an estimated 14.24 million viewers for Monday primetime when the rain delayed Daytona 500 finally got underway, along with an 8.2 rating/12 share.

For comparison, Fox averaged a 5.0 final Nielsen rating and 8.6 million viewers for its 13 Sprint Cup Series telecasts this season, up 4.2 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively, from a 4.8 rating and 7.8 million viewers over 11 races last year.

In other words, 14.24 million tuned in for the Danica Patrick Daytona 500 show, an increase of over 5.6 million viewers from the most recent Fox NASCAR races.


She wasn't the only one making media history at the race.  When the jet fuel explosion brought the race to a standstill on the 160th lap, fellow NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski grabbed his phone and started tweeting on Twitter.  During the delay his eyewitness Tweets helped boost his Twitter following from 65,000 to 200,000 followers.

But that wasn't what made history.  He was the first driver to ever tweet from the race track during a race, even though he was parked on the track waiting for the restart.


His staggering number of followers still left him far behind the new kid on the block, Danica Patrick, who brought over half a million Twitter followers with her to Daytona.
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Danica Patrick Survives 3rd Crash to Finish Daytona 500

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Is Danica the reincarnation of the ancient Irish Goddess Morrigan?

We said she was the toughest super model in NASCAR and after her first weekend at the Daytona Speedway as a fulltime NASCAR driver she demonstrated in a way that would make the ancient Irish Goddess Morrigan proud.

In three straight races including the 500 the bad boys of NASCAR knocked her car into walls and wrecks that many a person might not have survived but not Danica, the new ratings queen of the speedway.


Like a cat with nine lives she climbed back into her car for another 200 mph challenge to the men's club of stock car racing.  Even in the five car pile up in just the second lap of the 500 classic, as her car limped back to the pits with the rear end destroyed and the sheet metal battered, this spunky little Irish lass refused to get out of the car in the shop, insisting on staying in the battered machine until extensive repairs were made so she could continue the race.


With her Irish heritage Danica reminds me of Morrigan of ancient Irish mythology, a fearless dispenser of courage and Goddess of victory.  She proved that on the Indy car circuit before moving to NASCAR and demonstrated it again with her courage to finish the race.  It took 65 laps before her car was repaired enough to reenter the race but she came flying out of the pits to the wild ovation of the 176,000 fans and millions of prime time television viewers who were still waiting to see if she could survive.

In the end she finished while the likes of legendary Jimmy Johnson who plowed into her car and Jeff Gordon did not finish.  In fact nearly a dozen of the guys didn't finish in this most bizarre of all Daytona 500 races.

This year's Daytona had a series of most unusual firsts that must have been brought in on the wings of the Irish lass.

It was the first Daytona 500 rained out.  When the second start time at noon Monday was also rained out it became the first Monday night prime time television broadcast of the 500, bringing NASCAR to perhaps millions of new fans.


It was also the first Daytona 500 to get a red flag, meaning the race was stopped cold, because of a jet fuel explosion on the track during the 160th lap.  No NASCAR does not allow jet fuel in the cars though the speeds they reach over 200 mph might seem like it.

This time a truck was on the upper part of the track with a jet engine to dry the track and a race car who was supposed to be passing it at the bottom of the track suddenly swerved into the jet dryer causing a massive eruption of the jet fuel on the truck.  It took nearly an hour to put out the fire and clean the track before the race could be restarted.


It was also the longest Daytona 500 in history taking over 36 hours to finish from the original starting time.  The race extended from noon Sunday until the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

In spite of about ten wrecks, some multi-car, the rains and the jet fuel explosion, it was an electrifying mad dash to the finish that was won by Matt Kenseth over Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

And after surviving three major crashes between Thursday and Monday across the finish line came Danica Patrick fresh from her introduction into the men's club of NASCAR.

NASCAR and Fox television surely got a massive bump in television ratings because of Danica along with the delay of the race until prime time Monday.  She was also one of few new drivers who brought her own major sponsors to the sport.


In fact Go Daddy, the Internet domain company who sponsors her has put her in more Super Bowl commercials, ten, than any other sports star and they are the most expensive commercials on television at $3.5 million each.  Not only did they sponsor her but they were a presenting sponsor for the Daytona 500 Nationwide broadcast.

“I did not sponsor Danica because I wanted to get into racing,” Bob Parsons, head of Go Daddy said. “I got into racing because I wanted to sponsor Danica. If it wasn’t for Danica, I’m not sure I’d be involved in racing.”

The best news is we only have to wait a few days to see her second NASCAR race in Phoenix this weekend.
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Saturday, February 25, 2012

America's Toughest Super Model - NASCAR's Danica Patrick

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Survives major crash to win Daytona 500 pole position

Danica Patrick, the hottest driver in the fastest and most popular sport in the world, NASCAR and Indy car racing, survived a crash on the last lap of a race, then went out the next day and made history winning the pole position in the legendary Dayton 500 racing classic Sunday.

Born: Beloit, WI
Residence: Phoenix, AZ
Website:
www.danicaracing.com


In seven short years, Danica Patrick has risen from IndyCar® Rookie of the Year to Superstar. Former team-owner Bobby Rahal has dubbed her the "first real media star in IndyCar since (Mario) Andretti and (A.J.) Foyt."*


Widely credited with bringing new interest and fans to open-wheel racing, Danica's fame has often overshadowed events on the track. Whether she's walking the red carpet or driving the Vegas strip, fans simply can't get enough of her.

Danica has appeared in numerous commercials, a Jay-Z music video, an episode of CSI:NY – she even played herself in an episode of The Simpsons. She's been mentioned in a total of 227 articles in Sports Illustrated, featured on the cover twice, and has appeared in the legendary swimsuit edition. Twice.

After splitting her time between IndyCar and NASCAR® in 2011, Danica will compete full-time in stock car racing starting in 2012 with Go Daddy's sponsorship.

And just in case there's any doubt, she's already having a powerful effect on NASCAR viewers. According to Nielsen Television Research, her 2010 Nationwide Series debut at Daytona resulted in a 35 percent increase in viewership.

Ended the 2011 NASCAR season – her second part-time season – with three top-10 finishes, including a fourth-place finish in Las Vegas.


Finished #10th in the 2011 IndyCar Series standings, logging one top-5 and nine top-10 finishes out of 17 starts. Holds the series record for consecutive races running at the finish (50).

During seven seasons in IndyCar, she had 63 top-10 finishes in 115 career starts.

Best finish by a woman in a NASCAR top-circuit race (4th place at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – March 5, 2011).

First woman to win a major open-wheel race at Motegi, Japan (2008).

First woman in history to lead laps in the Indy 500 (2005).

* "Danica changed open-wheel racing," Holly Cain, 10/14/11, FoxSports.com

Here are the news highlights of Danica's week in Florida.

Danica Patrick made her NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing debut in today's first Gatorade Duel At Daytona. The first 59 laps were uneventful; Lap 60 was horrifying.


"It happened really quick," said Patrick, who was evaluated and released at the Speedway infield care center. "It felt pretty big. I don't know what it looked like."

Patrick's No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet was bumped off the racetrack on the final lap. Her stock car bee-lined to the infield retaining wall and crashed hard.

An in-car camera aboard her car showed the 29-year-old driver take her hands off the wheel and up to her helmet shield just before impact.

Open wheel racers are taught that so that the sudden impact to the steering column won't snap a wrist.

"I felt like I was having a solid race," she said. "I was up with the front group for a while then felt like I started to slow down.

"We were looking to finish honestly. I felt comfortable. It was just a matter of getting into the right line with the right people. I'm just bummed out. We only had two corners to go."

Ironically, her car owner, Tony Stewart, won the first 150-mile qualifying race over the 2.5-mile tri-oval.


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – For the first time in her NASCAR career, Danica Patrick was the fastest driver in Nationwide Series qualifying Friday.

That also meant she was the fastest female and only the second woman to capture a pole position in the three major touring series in NASCAR's 64-year history.

"I really don't think about it from a girl perspective," she said after turning a 182.741-mph lap for Saturday's DRIVE4COPD 300. "I've been taught from a young age to want to be the best driver. My dad's here, so he can attest to the fact that when we'd go out go-karting, and I'd be a half-second quicker than everyone, and he was still ticked off and not happy and we kept working.

"It was about being the best driver and not the best girl."

Patrick, who will make her Sprint Cup debut in Sunday's Daytona 500, is making a full-time move to NASCAR this season. She will race full time in the lower-tier Nationwide Series and making 10 starts on the premier circuit.

In making the transition from the Izod IndyCar Series (where she raced from 2005-11 and became the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500 and win a major-league oval race), Patrick has talked often about wanting to build credibility with her new competitors.

She was hopeful that starting first Saturday would get more drivers enthused about seeking her out for bump-drafting, which is when two cars make contact to increase their speeds.

"Anytime that you show that you have a fast car, it's encouraging for people to want to help you," Patrick said. "You always want to be with the fastest cars possible. We'll see how it works on in the Nationwide race because it seems like there's a lot of bump-drafting. So I think that starts to earn you some respect and credibility because people will want to work with you then. Then my job is to show them that I'm good to work with."

Elliott Sadler, who qualified third, said Patrick already had proved that last July at Daytona when she led 13 laps and placed 10th (tying for her second-best finish behind a fourth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last March that set a record for a woman in NASCAR's national series).

Want a thrill?  Ride with Danica in the following video as she is pushed into the wall this week.


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