Depends.
I'm a professional (part time) drag racer
the ladies....they are TOUGH. Great competitors.
Ms. Patrick has some valid points though and I do use some of them to my competitive advantage, as does every other male competitor. But with what we are doing (bracket racing) reaction time is everything, and it seems like the ladies are a little bit tougher on the tree than us guys are.
The great thing, before the race we are all friends. During the 1 minute of race, we are enemies. Afterwards? Hugs and congratulations. Except Ms. Patrick, she's sour the entire time.
I met her in 2009. 2009 was an interesting and exciting year for me. My friend invited me to Florida, first time Iv'e been. Saw almost the entire state from key west to the panhandle, missed out on some of the NE Florida area. Spent 6 days driving all over the place. A month later we drove to Indy to watch the 500 qualifying. (I think it was 2009, I may be wrong). We had VIP passes, as my friend is good friends with some of the higher-ups and quite a few of the drivers, crew chiefs, owners, and track officials. Well I was sitting up in the bleachers right near the pit entrance to gasoline alley. There was a group of girls, I say girls some of them were older women, they were all standing there waiting for Danica to come back into the pit after a qualifying run. She pulls in, jumps out and throws the helmet back at one of the crew, then walks off. The girls (about 40 of them?) were all asking for autographs through the fence. Danica walks over, and of course the cameras came with her, and one of the camera crew people started asking why she was upset. She turned on the camera guy, holding an autograph picture, saying something to the effect of this is the worst car I've ever driven and the crew needs to rethink putting a body into such a dangerous car, then threw the picture back at one of the younger girls and stormed off. Later on, she had some choice words for one of the older women who were standing there in the pit area, looking for autographs, of which I won't repeat. The lady wanting an autograph was a cancer survivor, about age 60 is my guess. Her husband died in February of that year. Her name was Lynn, lived in Illinois--we talked for a good while in the museum earlier in the day. Unprofessional? Yes. I understand being competitive and sometimes that affects how you interact with people, but I also understand professionalism in that caliber of motorsports. One doesn't publicly dis the team on national TV, and one doesnt say things to fans, and expect to survive as a "professional". The end of that season revealed what I had suspected, sponsors pulled out. Couple years later she tried nascar, and failed at that as well. Some might say even getting into the show is a success and I'll go along with that, however there are a lot of ways to get into that show and she knew how to push those buttons. Publicity. People knew her. Some of us know/knew a lot more.
I can say with certainty that even in my profession which is completely different but still racing, when people show up at the pit wanting pictures, we take pictures with a smile. When kids want to rub on the car, we walk around it and talk about it. Sometimes they even want to sit in the seat, that really gets their brains going. The parents love it, I love it, the kids just eat it up. We don't turn people away, even if I'm having a bad day, I'll still talk to them while working but I just can't spend a whole lot of time with em. Those days suck. Thankfully those aren't common. I'm no longer sponsored, and am slowing down considerably but I still enjoy it, and I think the most important part is interacting with the other folks that are either competing or just spectating. That's one of the beauties of drag racing, most of the time your entry fee is a pit pass so you can get up close and personal with drivers and crew and vehicles. Unfortunately our sport is dying, and I'm sorry to say this, but it's in part due to our leaders' attack on the sport and way of life. Just read that Heartland (Topeka) is closing, and they left a statement that spelled out why. A lot of us suspected it anyway, but the statement drove home the reasons why, and it was of no fault of the owners; rather city leaders attack.
