Danistar to Fender World AND IndyCar in 2010?

According to a story on ESPN.com, Danica Patrick will be in IndyCar next year ... AND run some Nationbusch, Amusing Trucks and ARCA races.

Read it here. Props to reader Dustin for alerting me to the story.

Question is, how would the faithful react to a her double dip?

Comments

[FTHurley]

If this is true, good for her. That's downright old-school.

[Sue]

Whatever.

[dylan]

Not good for Indycar at all, they had better start grooming Graham Rahal and Helio Castroneves, and mabye Sarah Fisher to be the stars of the series in a couple years.

[kelsey]

the IRL will definitely need to find more drivers to use as the image of their league or who knows what will happen. Danica may have 1 win but she is pretty much one of the only faces of the sport.

[CurlingRacer]

I know if I'm AGR, or whatever they will be called next year, I wouldn't want someone in the seat that isn't fully committed. It's not a good situation for anyone. Take the sponsorship money from Danica and develop the cars for TK, Marco, and hopefully JR Hildebrand. Use her as she is using you Mikey. I guess those of us who bought into that sappy video that we've all seen with Danica saying here's the trophy space for the Borg-Warner should feel used as well. I hope she gets what she wants, but this is not good news for Indy Car no matter how you feel about her.

[redd]

danica running both series would still bring publicity to the IRL. seems like this is the smart way to go for her, if she wants to work that much.

[Joe]

Et tu, Smoke?

[H. B. Donnelly]

Tony Stewart did it, and realized he was awesome at stock cars, so that's where he went. If Danica realizes she's not that good at stocks, she can just hang with the IRL. Nothing terribly negative here, I'd say.

[Sean]

I want to see her go.

There are many people including me who see it as gimmicky she has a ride just because she's marketable while many much superior drivers (insert your own names here) are rideless or are driving junk. I want to see Marco go too, IF AGR can get sponsors without them, because almost any driver they could get would be an improvement.

People are talking about how she is the "face of the series" and how many fans she's bringing. I kind of dispute that. The VERSUS ratings are so low I'm guessing the only people who are watching are the hardcore who would watch with or without her. She helped there to be a brief ratings boost in 2005 when she arrived, but I think most of the fans brought in by her lost interest when she wasn't winning on a regular basis.

The series would have more integrity with better drivers in elite cars, although I suppose maybe AGR isn't an elite car anymore.

I'm kind of annoyed she's staying (especially since it's clear she probably will be going eventually), but it is her smartest move.

[pressdog]

I'm pretty ambivalent about it right now. I'm not really on fire that the IRL is the fall back plan. The vibe I get is: "Well, if I can't make it in the big leagues, I can always go back to IndyCar." Are ya in or out?

[Bruna]

'The vibe I get is: "Well, if I can't make it in the big leagues, I can always go back to IndyCar.'

No, you're not alone. I think the same. I'm a little divided about the situation too, but I'm still in favor of the IndyCar. Let's see.

The moment is what I can say.

[Damon]

The series was "a fall back plan" for Franchitti and Fisher when they failed at Nascar, why can't it be the same for Danica is she fails too?

[pressdog]

"Why can't it be the same for Danica if she fails too?" I never said it couldn't be. I said I wasn't on fire about it being the fall back plan. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean it can't be.

[Damon]

Robin Miller was just on WT Extra and doesn't think Danica is going to Nascar and speculated that it just might be Tony Stewart messing with the media again, like he did at Indy on Bump Day a few years ago.

We'll see, I guess.

[Beachbum]

Another episode of "Where's Danica"