Monday, April 28, 2008
It's All About Girl Power
Lynne Tibbet
It's all about Girl Power these days at The Rant. In the span of eight days Danica Patrick became the first woman to ever win an IndyCar Series race, and then Ashley Force became the first woman
to ever win a Funny Car race in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.
The NHRA, in particular, has always been ahead of the curve, whether it's women in racing (Shirley Muldowney, Angelle Sampey, Melanie Troxel, etc) or minorities in racing (Antron Brown, Tony and Cruz Pedregon, etc), yet the series gets little coverage for it. The NHRA certainly deserves more, that's for sure.
Speakig of Girl Power, it's amazing to see just how much power Danica has. For the first two days of last week (April 21-22), ticket sales for our IndyCar event were up 400-percent over the same time period the prior week (April 14-15). Danica's win in Japan certainly triggered that. You can catch the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County in Sonoma, Aug. 22-24.
Hey, if you're in the area this Wednesday, April 30, around 1 p.m. stop by the raceway's main offices and watch IndyCar driver Townsend Bell milk a cow on our back patio! Bell, who is from San Francisco, will produce "California Milk for a California Driver" and bring it with him to the Indy 500 in late May in the event he reaches Victory Lane! It's an event for the press but race fans are invited to come on Wednesday.
If you're a two-wheel fan, the stage has been set for a pretty dramatic weekend here at the Kawasaki AMA Superbike Showdown, May 16-18. Suzuki's Ben Spies won both Superbike features this past weekend (April 26-27), closing the gap on teammate Mat Mladin (178-158) in the points chase. Spies is seeking his third-straight AMA crown, while Mladin is after his ninth Superbike win in Sonoma. It's going to be a three-ring circus out here with something for every two-wheel fan: AMA racing, street freestyle, supermoto, trials exhibitions and new for 2008, motocross!
Finally, great to see Los Gatos' AJ Allmendinger back behind the wheel of the Red Bull Toyota in NASCAR. Allmendinger qualified a very strong 4th and took 30th place in the race. Another local, J.R. Hildebrand (Sausalito), won his first-ever Firestone Indy Lights race over the weekend in Kansas, and he took the points lead, as well. Nice work for the local guys!
That's all for now!
