I think Tony, Jr. may have committed a cardinal sin by even invoking Dale Earnhardt's name in the same sentence as Danica Patrick. Maybe they need to let Tony Eury, SENIOR give her a few tips!
Crew chief: Danica Patrick must fight back to get respect
8:51 PM, Jun. 16, 2012 |
USA Today
By Nate Ryan, USA TODAY
Danica Patrick's crew chief says she isn't getting enough respect and maybe she needs to start spinning people out. / Russell LaBounty, AP
BROOKLYN, Mich. (USA TODAY) Danica Patrick spun three times during Saturday's Nationwide race at Michigan International Speedway.
Her crew chief is hoping she will be spinning other drivers in the near future.
"There's not a lot of respect for her out there right now," crew chief Tony Eury Jr. told USA TODAY Sports. "That's been showing over the last couple of weeks. I'm trying to teach her to understand she's got to get the respect somehow. If they keep running over her, she's not going to get that respect."
After Patrick finished 18th in the Alliance Truck Parts 250, Eury had two long chats with his driver, first on pit road next to her No. 7 Chevrolet and then in the garage.
His message was one of encouragement for Patrick, who has dropped from 10th to 18th in the points standings with three finishes outside the top 15 in the past five races.
But Eury also told Patrick she would be well suited to add a dash of Dale Earnhardt to her game by fighting back when challenged.
"If she's planning on being in this sport along time, she's going to have to get that respect," Eury said. "It's not a deal where you intentionally wreck people, but you have to get their respect. If a guy wants to go in the corner and turn left across the bottom expecting you to lift (off the throttle), and you do every time, then I'm going to keep doing it. But if I go in (the corner) and straighten the wheel and send him for a loop, he's going to figure out, 'You know what? I can't turn across that girl's nose, because she's going to (stay on the accelerator).' That's what I'm trying to get to her.
"I look at 'Big E.' He got a reputation that you didn't screw with him for a reason because I'm going to pay the price at the end of the day. She's never had to do that, and these guys will certainly take advantage of the gender situation and think she won't do it. I'm going to help her get her head right where she can do it."
This season, Patrick made a full-time move directly from the Izod IndyCar Series, where bumping drivers aside is nonexistent because wheel to wheel contact is disastrous, to NASCAR, where hitting a rival to gain a position is widely celebrated.
Until she began moonlighting in stock cars two years ago, virtually all of Patrick's experience was in open-wheel cars. Compounding the transition is that she is one of the most popular drivers in the world, putting a large spotlight on her every move on and off the track.
"Everybody gets excited in the garage, you hear it from officials and everybody whenever she runs good," Eury said. "Everyone wants to know what the No. 7 car is doing because the expectations are not there. I think it bothers them a little bit when she comes in here with her experience in Indy cars and outruns some of these guys.
"She hasn't grown up in Late Models. She ain't drove trucks. She don't even know how to go out and move people around the racetrack like these guys do. Sometimes they take advantage of the situation, and it's teaching her how to handle that, how to do that."
Eury took exception to the way Austin Dillon seemed to close up and take the air off Patrick's spoiler just before her second spin, and he radioed her "they hate that you're running this good" during the ensuing caution.
Eury said Dillon used a "an old trick that's been around for decades" to adversely affect the handling of Patrick's car to aid in making the pass.
"I'm telling her she may be racing him at Texas at the end of year, and she might be a better and smarter driver," he said. "If she's racing him for the win, she might drive up on his left rear and loosen him up."
After qualifying fifth, Patrick battled a loose car from the drop of the green Saturday. She spun on the first lap and then drove through conditions she called "white knuckle" for the next 249 laps.
"I was really loose," she said. "At Charlotte, I qualified third and managed to be OK at the beginning and end of a stint but not the middle. We said, 'We're going to need to free the car up if we're going to run in the top 10, top five throughout the day.' I don't know if it was too loose for that, but I'd say it was very difficult to be aggressive with the car. That's something you need."
Patrick found solace in keeping her Chevy off the wall in the first two spins after lacking such car control earlier in her NASCAR career. She also was running eighth when she spun while racing Brad Sweet with 12 laps remaining, radioing her team that "I'm really sorry. I could give up position and not crash, or I could try to race him. It was just tough to drive."
Afterward, Patrick put her head in her hands and leaned on the hood of her lime-green Impala for a minute collecting herself before chatting with Eury.
"Yeah, I am bummed out," she said. "The positive note is I qualified a lot better than I have lately and drove my way back to eighth. We were a top 10 car from (the first spin) on lap 1. There's a lot to be positive about.
"When you're racing with new people, you're trying to earn each other's respect. You're saying, 'This is where I want to be.' I think I was racing with different people than lately. You have to feel each other out."
Though Eury singled out Dillon's move as an example, he said there weren't any specific drivers who were taking advantage of Patrick's inexperience on a regular basis.
"Nothing is pointing the finger at one individual," he said. "We're still in the learning curve. This is the first full season of trying to understand how stock-car racing is. I've been doing it for 20 years. She's been doing it for three. I'm trying to help her with the ins and outs before they happen or as they happen.
"I told her don't worry about it, keep your head up. We've had a couple bad weeks. That's got to bother her. She had a fast car (Saturday). She had a seventh- or eighth-place car. Think about the positives. We'll improve on it and have another good run."
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
