Girl race car driver - Selling it with sex

Have you ever heard of Danica Patrick? For those who don't remember, she's the girl rookie who at 100 pounds and age 23 led in the 2005 Indianapolis 500 race. She raced aggressively and wisely to finish ahead of all but 3 of the testosterone fueled veteran male drivers. I'm not a racing fan but I channel surfed into the race that day and was hooked. As father of a daughter the same age, former coach of a girls' softball team, and a believer in women's abilities to achieve as highly as men where brains and coordination are involved, the drama grabbed me. I was on the edge of my chair rooting for her.

Because I am not particularly a racing fan, Danica was quickly off my mental radar screen after the race. Once in a while I'd hear her name in the sports news as having placed in some position in some race, but that was about it. I never heard of a win… until now! She just appeared on my computer news page for having become, on April 20, the first ever woman to win an Indy car race and she's holding a third place point standing this year in that sport. I felt a little "hooray moment" and quickly Googled my way to her web site to revel in the excitement and see what this woman was all about.

Whoowee! Imagine my shock when the page opened up with a big splash of highly sexualized Bat-woman type whiz bang. The page opens ponderously slowly if you don't have an Indy-speed bandwidth but it links to this page. http://www.indymotorspeedway.com/danica.htm There she is wearing trashy little skimpy outfits and draped sensually all over a yellow '57 Chevy. This certainly doesn't promote my interest in Indy racing. If anything it makes me want…uhh…to have a vintage '57 Chevy. Then it only gets worse with a link to her Sports Illustrated swimsuit photo-shoot where she appears in various stages of squirming out of a racing suit wearing a tiny bikini and not always both parts of it.

Now I don't have anything against nudity or sexuality. In fact, sex is my favorite human interaction. It's just that this business of SELLING IT with sex really puts me off. There's not one chance in a googolplex that Ms. Patrick would blunder into this blog post, but if she did, she might comment "Mind your own business gramps. This is who I am. This is who I want to be. Don't confuse me with Nancy Drew!" Continuing this imaginary conversation I might say, "OK, fair enough. But consider the unique position you are in to inspire the three billion women and girls in the world to believe in and nurture their athletic and intellectual gifts." In 1993, pro basketball bad boy Charles Barkley defended his personal behavior, declaring that sports figures should not be considered role models. I couldn't agree more. But I say to you, Charles and Danica, sports figures ARE considered role models, whether or not they should be or want to be.

Danica, you ARE certainly cute draped over a yellow Chevy quarter panel with your hiney crack peeking out the top of your underpants, but so would be a million other young women. My grandfatherly advice is to save this for your close friends or spouse and keep your public image focused on racing. Women who can't back out of a parking place without having a thousand dollar crash can pose for these kinds of pictures. NO! On second thought, I don't want my wife posing for such pictures either. Well anyway, be careful zooming around out there so fast in your Indy car. I'm still your fan. I want to keep seeing you for a long time…holding trophies while completely zipped up in your racing coveralls!