Brand vs. mission? Danica has to decide
In the good old days, when drivers switched from one series to another, all they took was their helmet and their talent.
These days they have to carry along their business and their brand.
So says Danica Patrick, who has apparently entered a midlife crisis at age 27, because she says she is seriously contemplating making the move from the IndyCar Series into NASCAR stock cars.
Why would Danica, who has not come close to achieving her self-stated open-wheel goals of winning the Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar Series championship, potentially blunt the upward trajectory of her career by attempting a form of motorsport that has humbled championship-caliber open-wheel talent from Sam Hornish Jr. to Dario Franchitti to Juan Pablo Montoya?
The marketing folks would have you believe it's the best place for Danica and her brand. Not to mention the spending habits of her faithful legion of fans.
Danica has a mainstream appeal rivaled in America only by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Last week at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, I observed a middle-aged man wearing a Danica hat and a T-shirt depicting A.J. Foyt in a 1960s dirt car. Two racing drivers could not be more disparate, yet this fan clearly loved them both equally.
And the rest of America loves Danica, too. Young and old. Male and female. With a remarkable combination of charm and chutzpah, Danica's grip on middle America is as tight as her vise-like handshake.
For the marketers, including Danica's management team at International Management Group (IMG), the pairing of Danica and NASCAR is a match made in heaven: Indy car's top-earning driver and the money pool of NASCAR, where everything is bigger and better.
"The NASCAR rumors are true," Patrick said, confirming also that she recently visited several top NASCAR team facilities. "We're definitely exploring all the opportunities that are out there for me as a driver and as a business and a brand."
It's hard to see how Danica the business or Danica the brand would fail in the NASCAR world. She's the only Indy car driver who does any serious business selling T-shirts and trinkets, and NASCAR Nation likely would welcome her enthusiastically with their wallets.
Conversely, it's equally difficult to imagine Danica the driver succeeding in the NASCAR environment. Stock cars require a completely different mindset and car-control skills. Open-wheel formula car drivers far more pedigreed than Danica have struggled to make the transition.
Three-time IndyCar Series champion and Indy 500 winner Hornish is the most prominent example. He's raised his stock car game considerably in this, his second full season for Penske Racing. Yet his best race finish is fourth place -- just last week -- and he ranks 26th in the Sprint Cup standings.
Hornish told NASCAR beat reporters he does not expect to see Patrick make a full-time switch to NASCAR in 2010.
"If you do something just for the money, you're not going to be happy," Hornish said. "I know she feels she already has a very busy schedule, but coming here you're automatically doubling the amount of races. And I don't care what anybody says about testing rules, you can test more over here than you can in Indy car. There's just a lot more work."
Patrick's career could go in three directions at this point. She can stay in the IndyCar Series with Andretti Green Racing, her home for the last three years; she could join Target Chip Ganassi Racing's IndyCar team and run a limited schedule of ARCA and/or NASCAR Truck and Nationwide Series races to get a feel for stock car racing; or fully take the NASCAR plunge.
Tony Kanaan, her current teammate, recently said he expects Danica to stay with AGR, but that would be contingent upon the team's crafting a lucrative enough sponsorship package to satisfy Patrick's increased demands. From Patrick's perspective, there are also questions about whether AGR will be one of the IndyCar Series' top teams in the future, a status it has slipped from over the course of the last year.
The pure NASCAR path would be the richest one for Danica. Her earning power likely would double or triple at a minimum, and she would be thrust into the national pop culture spotlight even more than she currently is. But how long will Patrick's fans remain loyal if she's running 38th in the Cup Series, and how happy will she be with herself if that's the case?
The Ganassi option seems to be the best compromise. The IndyCar Series can continue to benefit from Danica's presence, she'll gain knowledge from working with true professionals like Franchitti and Scott Dixon, and she can selectively scratch her NASCAR itch and see if it's a world she truly wants to experience 365 days a year.
Danica has certainly reached a career crossroads, and there's plenty at stake for a whole host of constituents out there who are waiting on her decision. Which side will win out -- the business and the brand or the racing driver?
John Oreovicz covers open-wheel racing for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.
