Danica Patrick's NASCAR fans and IndyCar haters have something in common

Danica Patrick’s NASCAR fans and IndyCar haters have something in common, as evidenced by the publicity she has gotten by returning to the Indy 500.

Danica Patrick, 36, is set to drive in her final race as a professional race car drive in the 102nd running of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the four-turn, 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Sunday, May 27. She is set to do so for Ed Carpenter Racing.

This race is also her first IndyCar race since she left the series to join NASCAR following the conclusion of the 2011 season. She drove full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports in the 2012 season before driving full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series for Stewart-Haas Racing from the 2013 season to the 2017 season. She drove in her final Cup Series race earlier this year in the Daytona 500 for Premium Motorsports.

One thing that has become evident so far this month with Patrick making her return to the Indy 500 just as it became evident during her tenure as a full-time Cup Series driver is the fact that her NASCAR fans and her IndyCar haters have one thing in common.

That one thing is that facts do not matter to them.

For five whole seasons, Patrick drove full-time in the Cup Series for Stewart-Haas Racing, one of the sport’s top-tier teams. In every season she drove full-time in the series except the 2015 season when she finished ahead of her teammate Tony Stewart, she finished as the lowest driver of a top-tier team in the championship standings. Her career-high finishes in the standings were 24th place results in the 2015 season and the 2016 season, and in 191 career races, her career-high race result was a sixth place effort at Atlanta. She racked up just seven career top 10 finishes in those 191 races.

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Her NASCAR career was nothing more than a publicity stunt, yet her fans would ignore this and say things like “she doesn’t have a good car” and “she still runs better than half the field”, two things that could not have been further from the truth no matter how you look at them. Just look at how Stewart-Haas Racing have thrived this season with her out of the picture. Her replacement, Aric Almirola, was two turns away from winning the Daytona 500.

In her Indy 500 career, Patrick has six top 10 finishes in seven races, including a career-high third place finish in the 2009 Indy 500, and her average finish is 8.71, which ranks fifth among the average finishes of the 35 drivers entered into this year’s Indy 500. Her total of six top 10 finishes in the race also ranks fifth among the top 10 finish totals of the 35 drivers entered into this year’s Indy 500, and her top 10 finishing percentage is higher than the top 10 finishing percentages of each of the four drivers who rank ahead of her in the top 10 finish category.

Her Indy 500 career, and really her IndyCar career in general, which featured six top 10 finishes in the championship standings in seven seasons and a career-high fifth place finish in the 2009 season, have not been that bad.

Yet for some reason, 90% (or more) of the IndyCar fanbase mistakenly believe that Patrick attempting this year’s Indy 500 is nothing more than a publicity stunt and that she “always crashes”, two things that could not be further from the truth no matter how you look at them.

In fact, she has zero DNFs in her last 50 IndyCar races, and as stated above, her Indy 500 career may not feature any victories and her IndyCar career in general may not feature many victories, but they have certainly been more than respectable.

But why let facts get in the way?

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How will Danica Patrick perform in her final IndyCar race and final race as a professional race car driver? Tune in to the 2018 Indianapolis 500 on ABC at 11:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, May 27 to find out.

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