What makes her so special?

OK, this last part is asinine.

T.O. (six time pro bowl selection, 1000 catches, 14.000+ yards, 144 touchdowns, five time all-NFL) and Allen Iverson (11x All Star, 4x scoring champion, 26 ppg career scoring average, 29 ppg in the playoffs, 24,000 career points) are probably hall of famers or at least have had careers bordering on hall of fame worthy.

Tim Tebow won a Heisman trophy, was a factor on one national championship team and the main factor on a second national championship team and has generally been regarded as one of the two or three best college football players in the country over the past three years and is also generally regarded one of the ten best players in college football history and is no doubt a college football hall of famer.

And even John Daly won a major in his rookie year, was the rookie of the year that year, won several other major tournaments in the next few years and in his fourth year won a second major -- so he EARNED the hype he got early in his career and frankly once he stopped winning, we stopped caring about him.

To compare those four to Kim Kardashian, who is famous for, fuck I don't even know other than being a whore and having a dad who defended O.J. Simpson and Danica Patrick, who has won nothing and is famous only because she is somewhat hot in a sport full of rednecks, is absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

Iverson, Owens, Daly and Tebow may not be the greatest at their respective sports, but all four accomplished significantly more in their sport than Patrick has -- or will -- in hers.

 

She's nowhere close to being hot enough or good enough to merit the attention she gets.

At least Anna Kournikova really was THAT hot.

 

Come again?

 

As for "won nothing," she has won one race and has finished second in many others. But I brought up her performance relative to her teammates because it shows that with the same equipment, she is doing as well or better. It's not her fault Penske and Ganassi have the means and ability to dominate. It's unfair to compare any racer to anyone in just about any other sport, because while the driver is important to a team's success, the car is far more important. Michael Schumacher is a great driver, but even he couldn't have put a Minardi on the podium.

 

I agree but only to an extent. Danica does have some talent. As others have said she's a good racer, not a great racer. I'm one of those feeling Danica isn't the best female driver in the IRL. But she is hotter than Sarah Fisher, thus the extra attention. I've interviewed both drivers, and in all honesty Sarah was the better interview. And she's easy on the eyes, but not the extent of Danica.
Danica started in 2005 with a team that challenged for the 2004 IRL title and won Indy in 2004. She's been in good equipment (if not great) her whole career. What does she have to show for it? ONE victory, a fuel mileage win in Japan when Castroneves suspiciously (to me, at least) slowed way down and let her pass.
And as for those talking about Mickey "I'm a NASCAR puppet" Waltrip, just how many points-paying races did he win when not driving a DEI car at a plate track when DEI was dominant on plate tracks? Mickey was smart early in his career and buddied up with his brother DW's biggest rival, which paid huge dividends down the road. That's how he got a ride with DEI just as the team was taking over Daytona and Dega. It for sure wasn't his driving talent that landed him the ride; if it was about talent Earnhardt would have moved Hornaday up from the Busch Series. Mickey is great with the sponsors and in front of the camera, which makes the comparison between him and Danica relevant.

 

No, she's not Kournikova hot, but she is a similar phenomenon.

Patrick has to have the greatest inverse ratio of fame/wealth to actual accomplishments of any athlete since Anna K. Not hard to figure out what the common denominator is.

 

True, but Kournikova was one of the best-looking women on the planet. She had supermodel looks. Patrick is good-looking for a race car driver. She's cute, but you can go to the mall and find someone who is better-looking.

 

She's also a better driver than Kournikova was a tennis player.

Not sure why this is so hard to understand or seems somehow unjust. If American racing - especially open wheel racing, which is nearly dead in this country - didn't have Patrick, they'd have to invent her.

The OP - among others - may want to track down this profile in the New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/31/100531fa_fact_boyer

 

A better driver than Kournikova was a tennis player?

Really? Kournikova rose all the way to No. 8 in the world tennis rankings at a time when women's tennis was loaded with top players and she also became one of the top doubles players in the world as well.

And you are right - open wheel racing IS dead in this country DESPITE the presence of the resident Angie Harmon wannabe......

 

Kournikova won all the time in doubles. I think she won a couple grand slams with Hingis as a partner.

 

No, but Sterling Marlin did. Twice in a row!

 

Ditto.