Danica Patrick

I am a female sports fan. I go to games, watch them on TV, download the apps, read the stats, and buy the T-shirts. I recently heard about the launch of a new professional women's soccer league, and I started thinking about the sports to which I am attached. They are all professional male sports - plus men's college basketball - but I have never thought about why. I suspect it has to do with my age (51), which limited my exposure to girl's athletics - Title IX was just beginning to be implemented when I was in school - as well as my sports fan role model, my father.

I am a female sports fan. I go to games, watch them on TV, download the apps, read the stats, and buy the T-shirts. I recently heard about the launch of a new professional women's soccer league, and I started thinking about the sports to which I am attached. They are all professional male sports - plus men's college basketball - but I have never thought about why. I suspect it has to do with my age (51), which limited my exposure to girl's athletics - Title IX was just beginning to be implemented when I was in school - as well as my sports fan role model, my father.

Just six months ago, Danica Patrick was a NASCAR rock star. She dazzled the crowd at media day at Daytona. Onlookers, journalists and photographers joined together in a paparazzi feeding frenzy. Short of scenes involving guys named Earnhardt, I hadn't seen anything quite like it. Flash forward to the dog days of summer, and the rock star's entourage has lost a little bit of that energetic infatuation. The click-click-click now is accompanied by the blah-blah-blah. That's a good way to document Patrick's presence on the NASCAR scene.

There's not a chance George Diaz Orlando Sentinel Stop dreaming. Not going to happen. Winning the pole for the Daytona 500 is a nice bump for Danica Patrick on the NASCAR radar screen, but let's not get carried away with giddy expectations. Anybody from Fireball Roberts to Richard Petty can tell you that having a fast car at Daytona doesn't mean beans if you get caught up in those restrictor-plate bumper cars. Moving forward from Daytona, Patrick is surrounded by excellent personnel and equipment at Stewart-Hass Racing, but as a rookie with limited Cup experience, she's in for a bumpy ride as she deals with the grind of a 36-race season.

Some Danica Patrick haters felt redeemed after her 31st-place finish Saturday in Fontana, Calif. That's a little ridiculous. The experiment hasn't failed. It's just getting started. Daytona was the easiest race Patrick will have this season and thus the perfect place for her to start. She better get used to ignoring her finishes and focus only on improvement. If she doesn't improve, go ahead and crow that she failed. The process will take at least a year. Reunion: Carl Edwards' Nationwide team got some good news this week.

Juan Pablo Montoya said in January he thought Danica Patrick would have pretty smooth runs in her first NASCAR Nationwide races. "You don't want to be the (jerk) that wrecked Danica," Montoya said, smiling. Well, on Saturday, Michael McDowell became "the (jerk) who wrecked Danica," even though that was only partially true. It was Patrick's last NASCAR Nationwide race for a few months as she heads back to the IndyCar Series. On Lap 83 she collided with McDowell, whose car already was damaged from a blown tire.

Danica Patrick couldn't quite believe what was happening Thursday evening. There she was, riding in a golf cart, taking a tour of the city's new 2.03-mile temporary street course, trying to get a feel for the new track that will host Sunday's inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix, when all at once she found herself in the middle of rush hour traffic. "If I was in a car, I think I would have been pretty ticked off," Patrick said. "The light changed and they sent us right into the traffic.

In her 50th race, Danica Patrick, the speed world's golden girl, had a golden ride. Nursing her fuel tank so that she had a few extra RPMs when she needed them, she flew by Helio Castroneves on the high side just a few laps from the finish and cruised to victory in the rain-delayed Indy Japan 300 over the weekend, thus making history as the first woman to win a major auto race. For Patrick, the whirlwind is just beginning. In an interview on ESPN after the race she said she had initially intended to spend an evening enjoying Tokyo but that winning Saturday's race changed her plans.

Some say it's because she's an attractive woman and a sponsor's dream. Some say it's because she's hurdling barriers no other woman has in racing. Some say she lacks talent. Others say she has already proven that isn't true. But one thing is undeniable. Anywhere Danica Patrick goes, excitement follows. Autograph seekers, adoring fans and detractors do, too. Any event in which she participates - even if it's just a visit to a NASCAR Sprint Cup team's race shop - matters. Any race in which she competes is relevant to more than just the fans of that race.

Two of the most important car owners in the IZOD IndyCar Series, Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi, sat beside each other Saturday afternoon to discuss the rivalry between their teams as the IndyCar season heads toward its finish. Penske's Will Power and Ganassi's Dario Franchitti are locked in another tight points battle. Franchitti has the 26 point lead going in to Sunday's Baltimore Grand Prix, but Penske said that might be the key to Power winning the title.

The weekend's NBA all star game gave halftime show junkies a fix after their Super Bowl withdrawl, Danica Patrick ran a fast qualifying lap, and Christoph Waltz shows everyone the lighter side of Hitler. Welcome to the post-weekend edition of your daily trends. The all-star game had by far the most related searches this weekend, with Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and halftime performer Alicia Keys among the big names sought by online readers.  There was also heavy interest in WWE coverage, the roster on SNL and the Walking Dead plotline.

James Hinchcliffe has slipped comfortably into Danica Patrick's former race car, if not specifically into her driving shoes. IndyCar's 2011 rookie of the year has taken the Michael Andretti Autosports car driven by Patrick to a 10 t h -place finish in the points last year, and become a regular top five finisher and legitimate contender for the series title. In the process, he has displayed a sense of humor, going so far as to don a woman's black wig at introductions for the opening race of the season.

Michael Waltrip will make a historic run in this year's Daytona 500. He will make his 75th start on the fabled superspeedway — the most of any driver — on Feb. 26. He will drive the No. 40 Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota for Aaron Racing. "When I was a kid thinking about Daytona, I never dreamed I would start more NASCAR races there than anyone," Waltrip, 48, said. "That's amazing. " Hopefully, Waltrip will bring plenty of 5-Hour Energy — one of his sponsors — down to Daytona.

Is there any question NASCAR's "It Girl" is serious about hanging with the big boys? News flash: Danica Patrick is skipping the Indianapolis 500 to race in the Coca-Cola 600 in May. That shows a serious level of engagement for Patrick, who has dabbled in NASCAR before making a full-time commitment to race a full Nationwide Series schedule and 10 Sprint Cup races this season. "It was her decision," said Tony Stewart , her team owner at Stewart-Hass Racing. "We didn't tell her she couldn't run the Indy race.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Busch brothers are always in the mix when it comes to contentious relationships in NASCAR. Kurt Busch had to be restrained by team members along pit road in Richmond after an incident with NASCAR.com reporter Joe Menzer . Menzer asked Busch — who had some issues with Jimmie Johnson at the Richmond night race — "Kurt, can either you or Jimmie win the Chase?" Busch cut him off and then said: "How did I see you were going to come with that?

They ran a Grand Prix through the streets of Charm City recently, and if you looked closely, some people say, those were dollars you saw spewing from the exhausts of those high-performance engines. Those are the kinds of dollars that spread all throughout the downtown area, to local establishments and small businesses. Soon, we'll begin to hear the story of the economics of the Izod IndyCar event. I'm told we should be interested in that story - the one about economics and racing.

She might not have known that racecar driver Danica Patrick was in the process of making history at the Indianapolis 500 yesterday, but she had a pretty good excuse. Adia Cotten was busy blazing her own trail - around a go-kart track in Elkridge. Just 10 years old, Adia started her last go-kart race of the day at Rounding Third Family Entertainment Center yesterday afternoon from behind. But lap by lap, she picked off one driver after another, boys and adults, until she was leading in the last lap. Coming around the final curve, though, she got bumped from behind by another driver and spun around, watching as all the other drivers beat her to the finish.

A burgeoning sex symbol led the Indianapolis 500 with six laps to go, and for the first time in a long time, the Indy Racing League was accelerating in the television ratings. Danica Patrick's fourth-place run in Sunday's race earned a 6.6 overnight rating, the highest the race has drawn since 1996. She helped the venerable event score a higher rating than NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 for the first time in four years. ABC Sports, which broadcast the Indy 500, was "thrilled" with the rating, said spokesman Mark Mandel.

As Danica Patrick makes the transition from the open-wheel world to NASCAR nation, she will have an excellent mentor. Tony Stewart will be her team owner while she races a select number of Cup races. Another mentor couldn't hurt. Mark Martin, anybody? It seems like a great fit. Martin will be looking for a part-time ride after he steps aside for Kasey Kahne at Hendrick Motorsports. "I would love to have him," Stewart said. "The biggest thing is us getting the financial backing to run the remainder of those races.