MVN - Most Valuable Network

Danica Patrick responds to Scott Dixon’s “menace” comment

Patrick: “I’ve always tried to play fair”

Danica Patrick told The Indianapolis Star’s Curt Cavin that while she’s striven for the respect of her fellow drivers, she also doesn’t think much of Scott Dixon’s comments last week at Iowa Speedway.

After Dixon finished fourth and Patrick sixth, the reigning Indy 500 winner lit into Patrick, calling her “a menace” after what he saw as dangerous driving from IndyCar’s biggest star. The Andretti Green pilot responded that she’s always “cut slack around [her]” in tough situations, but also told Cavin:

“I have the respect of my teammates and that, to be honest, is the only thing important to me.”

Fair enough. If she feels like she hasn’t done anything wrong (or at least hasn’t seen anything that’s proven to show her in the wrong), then she shouldn’t really think about what’s being said from those outside her team. Personally, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary about her driving last weekend; I chalk up her Lap 227 incident, in which Dixon and Marco Andretti were forced to split her slow-starting machine, as simply bad timing.

But if you click on the link, you’ll notice Brian Barnhart’s take on the situation and he’s right. A bad perception can render all good things useless. Whether she likes it or not, she may have to be a tick more careful this weekend despite the fact that the 3/4-mile Richmond International Raceway intentionally creates close calls due to being a bullring.

Of course, if this thing goes any further, then I guess we have a pretty nice rivalry then: The Indy 500 champion versus the main reason for the Indy 500’s resurgence. If you’re the attention-starved IRL, you better take it when you can get it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 8:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.