Saturday, April 28, 2007
It's the first time in motorsports history three women will participate in one race.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- Sure, Danica Patrick and Sarah Fisher are glad that the IndyCar Series is about to make motorsports history.
Their reasons have little to do with Milka Duno, though.
"It doesn't change my program," Patrick said Friday, two days before Duno makes her open-wheel debut at Kansas Speedway.
"It doesn't change my mind-set. It's not something I really think about."
Duno will make the IndyCar Series the first major circuit ever to start a race with three women in the field. It's part of a big weekend for women at the speedway, with three women in Friday's ARCA field and another in today's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.
"I don't race for that as a motivation," Fisher said.
"I didn't get the others into racing. But I think it's neat, and I'm glad to be a part of it."
Pioneer
For Fisher, though, being part of the three-woman Indy contingent is as much her own accomplishment as Duno's.
Fisher, who broke into the league at 19 and was the first woman to win a pole in a major open wheel circuit, spent last year racing stock cars on the West Coast but is back in the IndyCar Series after landing a ride with Dreyer & amp; Reinbold Racing.
"For me, it's about getting solid top 10s in and running up front," she said.
"The pressure isn't on me to win races. I'm just trying to finish every lap."
Patrick is just glad to see another driver in the IndyCar series, which would like to have 25 to 30 cars in its starting grids.
Duno's car makes 21 entries for Sunday's race.
At the same time, Patrick acknowledged that the more interest there is in a new driver boosts the league's fortunes across the board.
Renewed attention
That was certainly the case in 2005, when "Danicamania" -- fueled as much by Patrick's looks as her strong showing at that year's Indianapolis 500 -- brought renewed attention to the IndyCar series.
"If the car count goes up and people are paying attention to the Indy Racing League," she said, "then in turn there's lots of stuff that follows that that's good."
Duno, from Venezuela, is the series' first Hispanic female driver.
"That's the culture. Culture is just evening out everywhere, whether it's ethnic differences, male-female, black-white," said Patrick, who earned her first career pole at Kansas Speedway in 2005.
"Women are doing more 'male' jobs. They're presidents of companies, they're competing against men, and I think that's a sign of the times more than anything."
Patrick and her Andretti Green Racing teammate, Marco Andretti, also weren't worried about Duno's lack of experience.
She will have only three days of practice, including her rookie test Thursday, before Sunday.
"She passed with flying colors, from what I heard," Andretti said.
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