Baby you can drive my car

By Darrell Waltrip
Published

Folks, I love the Beatles song, "Baby you can drive my car — yes you're gonna be a star." I would wager that Dale Earnhardt Jr., his sister Kelley and Danica Patrick are all singing that song to themselves as we speak.

As you all know by now, Patrick signed a deal earlier this week to drive a part-time schedule for Kelley and Dale Jr.'s Nationwide Series team in 2010 and 2011.

One of the positives they will have going for them is that car she'll drive will be a fast car. You can take it to the bank that with Hendrick Motorsports equipment, you are going to have a great car. I won't be surprised if Patrick goes down to the ARCA test next weekend and has the fastest time testing. It wouldn't surprise me if she even sat on the pole for that race in February.

Now, she has been on that track before for the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. so she will pretty much know where the bumps are and how the cars move around at Daytona International Speedway. Naturally these stock cars will move around a little more than those cars do. So I don't think there will be any problems adjusting to that.

But where I have seen the problem and where I have seen Danica struggle is on the fast, high-banked racetracks where you have to run wheel to wheel with folks — Kentucky, Texas, Kansas and Michigan.

I just haven't seen her be real comfortable running side by side, wheel-to-wheel yet. In fact, I have heard her complain in the past, a lot actually, about her car not being good in traffic. I think a lot of that is her simply not being comfortable in traffic yet. Indy has those long straightaways so you really don't run side-by-side there. You pass people and get back in line. You run through the corners there mainly single file. I think that is a key to why she always runs well there.

I see being able to run side by side on a consistent basis being the bigger adjustment for her. Learning how aggressive the stock car crowd will be is something she is going to have to adapt to.

Now, no disrespect to the ARCA guys, but I sure would go look at the last four or five races at Daytona and make sure this is the right step to make. Those ARCA races down there can be pretty wild and crazy and you sure don't want to start her off getting her involved in a crash. That would simply start her stock car career off on the wrong foot. Now I realize they don't have a choice. If she is going to run that Nationwide Series race down there, she needs to get out there and pick up all the seat time she can get in a stock car. I am just concerned that she is really going to find out how difficult these cars are and how much trouble you can get yourself in is when you go three-wide into the corners at Daytona or someone bump drafting you around the racetrack. That's where I believe the struggles are going to come in.

At Daytona she will be running an old Cup car with the 110" wheel base. ARCA has approved a 105" wheel base for all the other racetracks, which is a Nationwide Series car. My point is, if she runs more ARCA races after Daytona, it will basically be in a Nationwide car. So there is benefit in that.

Speaking of cars

You know, nothing ever happens fast enough to suit me. When I see something that I believe will help racing, well I want to make the changes now, not a year from now. NASCAR moves at a different pace because obviously they have to take into consideration everybody, not just a few.

So now the Cup teams can sell not only their old Cup cars, but also their old Nationwide Series cars to ARCA. So there's an outlet for those cars. This will give the Nationwide Series teams the chance to build the second generation of the Car of Tomorrow, as I refer to it.

I just think I would do it differently. If I were in charge, I would make today's COT Cup cars eligible to run in the Nationwide Series. That would allow the Cup teams the chance to reduce their inventory by selling their old cars to the Nationwide teams. Then I would have the Cup teams building this new second generation COT car.

I personally think the new car is going to be a big hit and a big success. So why isn't this new car going to the Cup side of things? They are the big show. Why are they being forced to continue to struggle with this car we have now? To me, that's not right. I don't want to wait for this newer, better car to make its appearance in 2011. I want to see it now.

Folks, you can use the current COT chassis and simply put the new body on it. That's what I would do because our premier series, the NASCAR Sprint Cup series, would benefit from this new car and put on a better show. To set on that new car, knowing that it's a better car, but to only run it four times next year in the Nationwide series sure seems like a travesty to me.

Now I know we are only a couple months away from heading to Daytona, but teams today build cars in about 10 days now. I sure would be getting this new car in the hands of these Cup teams and let them start working with them. I just believe it would make it better for everybody.