Is Danica Patrick the face of NASCAR?

There's no denying that Danica Patrick brings added attention to NASCAR despite the fact that she has finished just 38th, 31st and 30th in her short Sprint Cup career.

Brad Keselowski did a double take at the question. It seemed almost as if the 28-year-old Sprint Cup star wasn't exactly sure he'd heard right. He repeated the question, as if to convince himself he'd heard it right. “Is Danica becoming the face of NASCAR?” he said quietly, staring off into the distance.

There was a brief silence before the Penske Racing driver finally answered. “Well, that's not for me to judge,” he said. “That's for you guys in the media to judge and for fans to judge. Certainly, she brings attention to the sport from a crossover standpoint. She brings attention from those who maybe wouldn't have been engaged in NASCAR, and new interest is always good interest. 

“I can't remember who said it—maybe Jeff Gordon a year or two ago— but it's great that she's bringing new attention, because if I win or he wins or whoever wins, at the end of the day it's the winner who gets the most attention.”

Even more than Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s 140-race losing streak, the big story heading into last weekend's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte was Patrick's growing impact on stock-car racing. Mainstream reporters, bloggers, broadcasters, telecasters, commentators, photographers and anyone else with a media pass focused on her two-race weekend. Instead of running 500 miles on Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis, she ran a 300-mile Nationwide Series race on Saturday afternoon and a 600-mile Cup race on Sunday night.

During the weeklong buildup to the 300/600 double, somebody recalled that three-time NASCAR champion Darrell Waltrip had called Patrick the “face of NASCAR” during a an early-season Fox TV broadcast. Not surprisingly, some of NASCAR's best-known drivers had different viewpoints about the quote. 

Five-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who seldom strays off into the weeds, played it straight down the middle. “I haven't noticed that she's becoming the face of our sport,” he said. “But the television broadcast people obviously pay a lot of attention to where she's running on the track. I've learned through the years that those cameras focus where everybody wants to look, where the majority of the eyeballs are focused, where they're paying attention.

“There's a reason for that. I don't have any feeling about it one way or the other. I mean, it's all about marketing. I'm glad she's here with us in NASCAR. I think she brings in a huge fan base and hopefully a new fan base for our sport. Marketing is marketing; you have to do what you have to do.” 

Keselowski took much the same tack. “It's just a matter of getting people to tune into the races,” he said. “If she can get people to tune in to begin with, that's definitely a win for the sport. But I'm not really a good judge on whether she's the face or not. I don't have enough time to look through those things to get a grasp of it.

“But I can understand if I was a track owner who relied on ticket sales or someone in the media who relied on page views or ratings, and if she sold more [tickets[ or produced more of them or whatever it might be, then I'd put her on whatever I could put her on. I can understand that approach. I guess at the end of the day it's for you guys and not me to judge whether she's the face of the sport.”

Patrick is running the full 32-race Nationwide schedule for JR Motorsports and 10 Cup races for Stewart-Haas Racing. As owner of her Cup team, Tony Stewart gets an up-close look at the 24/7 marketing and PR machines that put Patrick's visage on billboards, front pages, home pages, magazine covers, product-placement ads, local and national commercials and in TV and radio sessions. She continues to get NASCAR-scheduled media sessions not offered to other drivers.

“No, not at all,” Stewart said when asked if he's surprised that Patrick has become such a big part—maybe the biggest part—of NASCAR's marketing strategy. “It's been a long time since we've had a female driver at this level. It's the only time we've ever had a female this competitive, and I think it's good. It brings in a whole new demographic of people. It brings in a whole new fan base we haven't had before. I think it's a very good thing for everybody involved.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Earnhardt Jr. seems to intentionally distance himself from her Nationwide team His sister, Kelly Earnhardt Miller, oversees JR Motorsports and deals more directly with Patrick than anyone else. Earnhardt Jr., in fact, says he isn't sure whether Patrick plans to be part of JR Motorsports' plans next year.

“Aside from her Cup deal with Tony, I really don't know what her plans are,” he said at Charlotte. “We haven't talked about it and I don't know about her interest in any Nationwide races or whether Tony wants her to run them [in 2013]. I guess it'll all happen down the road.”

As for Patrick's season, she goes to Dover International Speedway this weekend ninth in Nationwide points with one pole, no top-five and one top-10. She seems to know her limitations and races accordingly, generally finding a comfort zone and staying there as much as possible. She got high marks for being smart and making laps in two recent races at treacherous Darlington Raceway. (She actually raced for positions in the Nationwide 250 but mostly rode for experience in the Cup 500). She's been 38th, 31st and 30th in her three Cup starts, finishing a total of 75 laps down. By contrast, she's finished on the lead lap in five of her 11 Nationwide starts. 

“She's had a difficult season and obviously wishes she'd finished better or run better,” said Earnhardt Jr., named NASCAR's Most Popular Driver for the past 11 years. “I think she needs to buckle down and try to learn everything she can. She's trying to get a four-year degree in a short amount of time, trying to learn a whole lot quickly. She needs to concentrate on what she can learn and what she can improve on [because] she's going to have a bigger challenge next year. She needs to look forward to that and try to prepare herself the best she can.”

Left unsaid was the obvious: Patrick, perhaps more than any NASCAR driver, already has mastered the off-track challenges.