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Danica Patrick has been thinking about Anna
Kournikova.
One season after she burst onto the auto racing
scene as a rookie, Patrick has yet to win a race;
and that has caused some to draw a comparison
between the attractive driver and the Russian
tennis beauty who failed to win a WTA singles title
during her eight-year career but became a modeling
and marketing sensation.
She placed eighth at this year's Indianapolis
500. She was fourth last year, and coming into this
500, the extremely media-savvy Patrick apparently
came to interview sessions prepared to address the
comparison.
The 24-year-old driver had at the ready the fact
that Kournikova was once ranked second in the world
in doubles. (Kournikova actually was ranked No. 1
at one point, but Patrick's research is very
impressive, nonetheless.)
"Who can say they were No. 2 in the world at
anything?" Patrick said. "Not very many people. You
have to respect that. If she was just a girl in
Russia, maybe she would have been pretty enough to
be a model. But you wouldn't have seen her in any
advertising."
Danica hasn't won yet, but that didn't stop her
at last summer's ESPY Awards.We know that Anna was
0-for-122 in singles tournaments and that Sunday's
Indy 500 will be only Patrick's 20th race, so
perhaps it isn't fair to associate her IndyCar
record with Kournikova's inability to win. But
Patrick was ready this week with another statistic
that clearly took someone some time to
research.
The researcher could have been her public
relations manager, Brent Maurer, who is known to
shake his head and crack a smile when Patrick has
something smart to say.
"Of the drivers in the [Indy 500] field
last year, it took the average driver 33 races to
win their first race," Patrick said. "And there are
some darn good drivers in the field, and so that's
next year for me already. So it's not like I'm
behind schedule or anything."
Whoa.
While it might be too early to worry that
Patrick's record might parallel Kournikova's
career, the similarities between the driver and the
tennis player are clearly there.
Like Kournikova, Patrick has pulled in millions
of dollars in endorsements, to the point that she
out-earns everyone with whom she competes on the
circuit. And as in Anna's case, the range of her
endorsements indicates that she appeals to a broad
demographic.
Patrick is on Hostess boxes to appeal to kids,
and in Secret deodorant advertising to appeal to
teenage girls. Her deal with Peak antifreeze is
aimed at the attention of the 35-year-old man, and
the executives who signed her to endorsement
contracts with Tissot watches and Argent Mortgage
obviously think Patrick's presence can reach both
sexes.
"She's such a compelling story that we've seen
that she appeals to everybody," said her team
owner, Bobby Rahal. "I've been approached by
70-year-old men who have told me that they love how
Danica is taking it to the boys. That same attitude
has been verbalized by women and mothers."
And like Kournikova, who helped double the sales
of a particular tennis string thanks to her photo
on its packaging, Patrick sells. This year, she's
the only IRL driver with her own merchandise
trailer, and more Danica-related items have been
sold on eBay this year than for any other driver.
Her popularity even challenges that of top NASCAR
drivers.
According to a Sports Business Journal
poll, Patrick is almost as well known as Nextel Cup
champion Tony Stewart; and she is more liked than
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon.
When a reporter mentioned that Kournikova seems
to have faded from the marketing scene recently,
Patrick was ready with a response once again.
"She got injured," Patrick said, implying that
if Kournikova could continue to play competitively,
she would remain relevant.
Anna's tennis career didn't seem to matter at
the World Music Awards last year. Perhaps the most
refreshing thing about Patrick is her blunt
honesty. Asked if she -- or Kournikova, for that
matter -- deserves to be making millions in
endorsements, Patrick replied with a big Why
not?
"There are plenty of people who are more famous
or popular and earn more money in endorsements
because they can, and they should," Patrick said.
"If they don't, they're just silly."
And despite her failure to get the checkered
flag so far, her sponsors don't seem to be
complaining.
"We all wish that she will win in the future,
but we look more to her personality and the
attraction that she has become on a global level,"
said Olivier Cosandier, brand manager for Tissot.
"And so whether she wins or not, she's still very
good for us,"
Patrick estimates that only about 30 percent of
the questions she gets from reporters are about her
racing, anyway.
"For the most part, [the sponsors] like
coverage; and I'm fortunate enough that I'm a
driver who gets coverage," she said.
Although Patrick hasn't been winning, her peers
almost unanimously call her the best woman driver
ever to hit the track. That figures to help keep
her in the spotlight, which didn't happen for Sarah
Fisher, one of her recent female predecessors in
open-wheel racing.
Fisher, who was voted the most popular driver in
the IRL from 2001 through 2003, won a pole position
and came in second in one race in 2001, but has
since faded into irrelevancy on the big-time racing
scene. She is currently attempting to get
sponsorship for a car to run in the NASCAR Truck
series.
One of the reasons for Fisher's fall, fellow IRL
driver Bryan Herta said, is that she tried to make
the jump from midget cars directly to the Indy
Cars, which created a developmental gap. Patrick
took the more traditional route of driving karts
and racing in lower circuits before she advanced to
the top level of open wheel racing.
"Sarah came right into Indy cars, and you can't
learn all the fundamentals if you don't go through
each step in the training ladders," said Herta, who
finished third in the Indy 500 last year and fourth
in 2004. "Danica has done all that."
Said Rahal: "I didn't hire her as just some
sideshow, a way to create some quick return in some
way. Because I felt if we did that, it would be
hugely unfair to her and we wouldn't be
successful."
Unlike Kournikova, whose love life has been the
subject of numerous rumors and whose relationships
with celebrities such as Sergei Fedorov and Enrique
Iglesias made headlines, Patrick has made little
secret of her marriage in November to physical
therapist Paul Hospenthal. And while some marketers
have hinted that the huge ring on Patrick's finger
might hurt her appeal with the male demographic,
Rahal said he isn't concerned.
"I think it could disappoint a lot of young guys
out there, but I don't think it's going to have an
effect," Rahal said. "In fact, it may enhance her
marketing. Racing is a pretty conservative world,
and the fact that she's married might be a plus in
a lot of people's minds. But I think that, in the
end, they will follow and cheer for Danica for what
she represents."
Source: Darren Rovell, who covers
sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at
E-Mail
, sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?series=1&id=2458333&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos2
Related Issue:
Women
in Racing,
Women
Racers,
More
Women in
Racing,
Notable
Women
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