Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history recently, winning the Indy Japan 300 by 6 seconds. Posted on 04/24/2008 10:43:23 AM PDT by PercivalWalks
Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history recently, winning the Indy Japan 300 by 6 seconds.
Some women's advocates and Patrick herself are complaining about a new rule which feminists claim is "aimed at the women in Indy." The rule says that lighter drivers have to carry ten more pounds on them.
Race car driver Robby Gordon has a different perspective, saying that Patrick is at an unfair advantage over the rest of the competitors because she only weighs 100 pounds. Because all the cars weigh the same, Patrick’s is lighter on the race track. He says:
“The lighter the car, the faster it goes. Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier."
I know nothing about auto racing beyond what I learn from watching old Speed Racer cartoons with my daughter, but Dan H., a reader, does. He writes:
"Auto racing is about accelerating and decelerating weight in a straight line and an arc (corner). It takes a calculated amount of fuel (power) to accomplish this feat with the largest variable by several orders of magnitude the amount of weight that is being thrown around. Ever hear of 'Power-to-Weight Ratio?' In heavily equalized cars weighing 1500 pounds, a 100lb driver vs. a 165lb driver is a rigged race. Robbie Gordon is dead right: Forget It!
"With nearly the sole exception of Tony George’s Indy Racing League, all of the major series, and quite a few of the club racers, recognize this and either weigh the car and driver together or separately and make adjustments. The IRL introduced a laughable adjustment just this year.
"While racing officials do not concern themselves with the driver’s height, muscle mass, shoe size, eye color, gender, carbon footprint, or about a hundred other personal characteristics, they very much want to balance the weight across the drivers then let 'em race. In auto racing, the driver’s weight looms as large as horsepower, tire width, vehicle height, spoilers, and more.
"People demanding that Danica’s huge weight (speed) advantage be ignored have never fielded a $45,000,000 race team. She weighs 75 pounds less than the average male driver in a sport where the teams pay $500,000 to get 2 pounds out of the weight of a manifold.
"She is a mid-pack performer at best that finishes higher up because of her incredibly advantageous weight. Bolt 20 pounds in the chassis beside each shoulder and her gender-provided weight bias disappears...and so does her up front finishes."
From what Dan H. says, it sounds a little like the Boston Marathon where a woman "won" the race because the female runners started the race 29 minutes before the men. If they spend $500,000 to decrease a car's weight by two pounds, a 75 pound difference seems staggering, and the 10 pound balancing that Patrick and feminists are complaining about seems pretty minor.
On the other hand, I wonder if Patrick's strength disadvantage also means something. Let's say, for example, that they equalized the weights, as they apparently do in most of the races. Would it then be unfair to Patrick because she is effectively forced to carry "dead weight," while the male drivers' extra weight is at least in the form of muscle that helps them drive the cars?
On another level, even to compete and be a "mid-pack performer" as a professional race car driver, as Patrick has done, seems like quite an achievement.
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Glenn Sacks, www.GlennSacks.com
Ahhh... the Barack Obama whining comes to the world of sports. If you can’t deal with losing to a girl... then don’t play the game!
Added weight makes sense to me. That’s how it’s done in horse racing.
I’ld be more than happy to follow Danica around for a few laps. :-)
Yeah, but keep this up and all the drivers will look like horse jockeys.
So now we have a sport that women have a built in advantage... what would the feminists say about that?
On one hand, they equalize weights between Jockeys for horse races.
On the other hand, if the other teams feel that a woman driver is an advanage, they can get their own women drivers.
That’s definitely a SEXIST rule. What about upper body strength advantage that Men have?
LANCE ARMSTRONG a great American Sports Hero and Hero in general, his BIGGEST advantage comes from being in great shape and essentially being lighter.
Time and again he took his leads in the Mountains during Tour De France. Its much easier for a rider to gain elevation when he is NOT fighting his own weight.
Should he have made to put weight on his bike to give fair advantage to other cyclists?
Little *icks can’t handle a real woman.
What did the article say? I was too busy looking at the pics.
Tell me this - why aren’t the best (i.e. fastest) drivers all built like jockeys, if being underweight is such an advantage?
what article?
And then there will be Congressional hearings.
Iwas such a advantage, she would be the Tiger Woods of racing, gettng win after win! This is her 1st win in 2 or 3 years
if being underweight is an advantage, they should hire me.
y’all should check this one out :)
Before each race each fully fueled car should be driven by its fully equipped driver onto a scale and weighed. Each car should then have weights added to it to make it weigh the same as the heaviest car/driver combination in the field. After that, start the race...
When you PERK, you win?
Anyone involved with racing for any length of time should be aware that a number of competitive series and even many local tracks use ‘wet weight’ to determine the minimum weight rule - that generally includes all fluids, a full tank of fuel and the driver.
This is nothing new and has been a contentious issue in rules management for many many years in multiple forms of racing.
I would love to see Danica try her hand at NASCAR racing, say down in the Truck Series at first. I think she’s got enough game to compete, maybe even at the Cup level, but the telephone books she’d have to sit on to peer out over the windshield might prove a disadvantage...
}:-)4
Sure,
But why are they whining now? She’s been around for years. How about the Chicks that run top-fuel...never heard a gripe then either.
And if were going to balasst Danica, then everyone under a certain weight get’s balast..not just some arbitray 10lbs. Bring them all up to the FAA standard 170lbs or some SAE standard. No problemo. But then we’ll hear griping about where the balast goes. She will still have an advantage in that the weight can be anywhere they need it to be to balance the car...their fat butts have to be in the seat.
So before this all drivers have weighed the same? Haven’t some drivers been larger than others before this race?
I think a wambulance is in order.
Get in better shape and drop some weight. Boy, what a wuss.
Do women tennis stars play against the men, and win?
Marathon runners, skiers, soccer, female boxers, weight lifters?
So is it whining by the men? Your statement should be reversed and directed at the women. IF YOU CANT PLAY BY THE SAME RULES AS THE MEN. GO BAKE COOKIES!
Actually this is obsolete info.
Starting in 2008 the Indy Racing League has incorporated ballast to equalize car weights depending on the driver category.
Now there is another part of the technical equation where her slight stature allows better airbox pressure (more power) due to better ram air (less helmet obstruction of the airbox entry).
I read that story in junior high. It had a huge effect on my life outlook. I wish more kids would read it. But most of their teachers probably wouldn’t understand its meaning.
I told my wife, I read FreeRepublic for the articles.
Or that less weight gave her less traction.
Now, that she’s win a race,will she still show her assets?
Re: “On one hand,
On the other hand,”
Do a Google image search . . .both hands would want to be all over that !!!
She’s nice.....
you shouldn’t lie to your wife like that :)
Ah, a Harrison Bergeron fan.
Waaah!
Maybe she should pick on someone her own size...
Having seen her many times in person at the track, it’s kind of one of those celebrity deals. They tend to look a lot in better in pics with makeup and photoshop polishing.
Of course it can. But it is just plain unsporty and lame for a man to complain about losing to a woman. Men lose in sports to women, it happens, but whining about it... only a girly-man does that.
Damn! What a bunch of cry babies.
Glad I’m a CONFIDENT heterosexual.
Rex: “I thought it was just a heterosexual.”
Bob: “No, it’s a confident heterosexual”
Why would they do that if "all the cars weigh the same" at the start of each race?
No doubt. She used to host the Power Block on Spike TV before Courtney Hansen. A definite step in the wrong direction in this viewer’s opinion.
Weight isn’t the only factor here.
Women are supposed to have more physical endurance than men so maybe the men can whine about that too.....Whaaaaaaaa!
Of course, they conveniently omit the fact that men are generally stronger ( and driving an Indy Car does require strength, just to resist the G-forces) so weight and strength become a trade off.
The men should get over it, or the teams should hire female drivers if they think they have such an advantage.
She could get 10lbs worth of silicone implants.....
Robby Gordon shows his lack of class yet again. Simply having a lighter driver does not guarantee performance -> remember Teo Fabi and the Porsche Indy Car effort? He was TINY and the car was designed for his jockey like frame.
Robby seems to find fault with everyone else and never himself. He talked himself out of open wheel racing and will probably do the same in NASCAR.
Danica is married.
So suck it up Robby-girl, no one likes a whiner.
I agree with this....Weight IS a critical factor.
Sorry ladies, but this isn’t some attack on your ovaries.
If there was a 100 pound man or midget being put in one of these cars, I would have the same concerns about an glaring unfair advantage.
Its just too extreme a difference in weight compared to all the other drivers.
I think Danica has proven she’s a driver who can compete on the Indy Car level so I have no problem with her jumping in an IRL car and going for it.
Good for her. But the weight issue needs to be addressed.
How much of that 200 pounds is beer and barbeque weight? Have the men considered losing any weight?
-PJ
I could go either way.
We all know that women are handicapped in their driving ability so any disadvantage that the men have in their machines would be offset by their inherently better driving skill.
Seriesly.....nothing but respect for ANYONE with the cojones to even sit down in one of those.
I remember once.....quite a few years and 40 pounds ago....I thought I was doing good at a Pirelli test&tune atop a brand new factory spec GSXR1000 with Pirelli slicks at a track in virginia. I came out of the #8 bank in second gear at 8k rpm.....a little bit of wheel spin until the front tire finally touched down as I changed into 3rd at 13k rpm. I heard the most deafening gawd-awful noise and was passed by a flat black F1. I forgot all about the data I was supposed to be collecting for the tires and had to make something up...
I will never forget the power coming out of that thing as it passed. Friggin awesome. I was shaking for two hours after that ride.
The simple fact is that weight has a huge effect on the performance of a race car. Both in accelleration and turning. I don't really know too much about this in auto racing, but in the case of motorcycle racing, losing 5 pounds of weight is equal to gaining an additional horse power in acceleration. Plus it allows the bike to decellerate much faster, and it allows the bike to turn much faster as well. A 75 pound weight difference is about equal to a 15HP difference, a HUGH difference in racing.
Mark
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