Duncan could be NASCAR'S Danica

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Duncan could be NASCAR's Danica

By MIKE HARRIS

The Associated Press


The sudden success, and accompanying frenzy, that IndyCar Series rookie Danica Patrick has enjoyed the past month has just about everybody in racing thinking about the future of women in the sport.
Mark Martin is no exception. And the more the longtime NASCAR star thinks about it, the more he figures it's inevitable that the time is coming for a woman - or women - to make it big in Nextel Cup.

"I think it's gonna happen; I just don't know when and where," said Martin, who plans to retire from the Cup series at the end of this season.

"Obviously, Danica has been able to breathe new life into IndyCar racing, and I think that's fantastic. And, although NASCAR is not gasping for air right now, when it happens, it's gonna breathe some more new life into NASCAR, too."

Women have raced in NASCAR sporadically since the early days of the stock car sanctioning organization, but none has made a real mark in the sport. Martin said history has nothing to do with the reality of the moment.

"There's nothing and never has been anything stopping it from happening," Martin explained. "We just haven't had our Danica Patrick lately. That just hasn't happened in NASCAR, that's all."

Some observers ascribe Patrick's success - leading laps and finishing fourth in the Indianapolis 500 last month were both firsts for a female - to the fact that she drives for Rahal Letterman Racing, a top team that gives her the best equipment available.

The handful of women who preceded Patrick in open-wheel racing and those who have driven stock cars have rarely had top-notch equipment.

"They have to earn the equipment just like all the rest of us have," Martin said. "Danica has earned her equipment and earned her opportunity. It just didn't materialize out of air. She earned it one piece at a time, starting (in go-karts) at 10 years old, and that'll have to happen to the NASCAR driver as well."

Martin has been an interested observer as his 13-year-old son, Matt, has progressed from racing quarter midgets to trucks.

"I've seen some girls coming up through quarter midget racing and all that were outstanding and were as good on a national level as any of these guys," he said. "But, what happens is along the way there aren't nearly as many girls as there are boys, and along the way a certain percentage of the girls and certain percentage of the boys get distracted and don't wind up fulfilling their potential.

"So it doesn't happen. But that happens to the boys and (the) girls."

Still, there already are some signs that women are beginning to make inroads into the stock car sport.

Allison Duncan, part of Richard Childress Racing's driver development program, won her first stock car race last weekend on a short track in Stockton, Calif., while Erin Crocker, part of the Evernham Motorsports driver development program, recently won a pole in her ARCA stock car debut at Nashville.

Martin said it's only a matter of time and circumstance.

"Just look at Danica and her success," he said. "That could be done in NASCAR. That could be done in Formula One, for crying out loud.

"Can you imagine the stir? That would be so cool. There's no physical reason why it can't happen, and there's also no reason why it won't happen. It just takes the right person with the right tools with the right drive with no distractions being in the right place at the right time to get the opportunity and, bam, it could happen."
 
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