IndyCar's Danica Patrick Makes Time's 100 Most Influential People

Here's some good automotive news for a change: The Danica Patrick IndyCar racing juggernaut keeps rolling along. And just in time for the biggest auto race of the year.

Time magazine, relying on an Internet poll to determine its third annual list of the top 100 most influential people in the world, named race car driver, advertising icon, Midwest fashion plate and the generally hot Patrick to position #93.

The only woman to ever win an IndyCar race (at Motegi, Japan, 2008) outpaced NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Queen of All Media Oprah Winfrey, FOX's Bill O'Reilly (maybe racing can save the world) and Prince (who, physically, is about the same size as Patrick).

Patrick received 523,545 votes. The magazine noted this is Patrick's first appearance in their Top 100 list.

This past week, Patrick unveiled a new black/orange paint sheme on her #7 Honda/Dallara IndyCar racer, just in time for the upcoming Indy 500

In the PR statement she didn't write, Patrick's people said: "I'm humbled and honored to be on the list with so many other amazing people. I'm grateful to have wonderful people around me that keep me grounded and in the moment. I know I don't say it often enough, but thank you for helping me achieve my goals and dreams while allowing me to be myself in the fast-paced lifestyle I lead."

Why do sponsors always think these drivers have to sound so damn homogenized? I wish the PR people would get out of the way and let ... racers be racers. Racers don't say things like, "the fast-paced lifestyle I lead." They say, "Get out of my way or I'll put you in the wall and kick your freakin' ass." And then they do.

And with the Indy 500 coming up May 24th (which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the circuit itself, the world's first purpose-built race track; the race's 100th birthday comes in 2011), attention on the sport and its drivers is reaching, well, if not exactly a fever-pitch, we can say that for the first time in over a decade, an American racing series besides NASCAR is getting some attention in the nation's general interest media.

(On KCRW radio's "Left, Right and Center" broadcast Friday, co-host Robert Scheer opined that the Republican Party has become a solidly Southeast-based group with little membership outside that part of the country. "Aha! Just like NASCAR!" I thought).

Patrick in the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition

And right now, the 28-year old Patrick is the uncontested most-popular (and most-interesting and certainly best-looking) driver in open-wheel or any other kind of racing. Smart, skilled, built tighter and sleeker than any race car she drives and with a non-stop and sometimes snarky mouth which her team owners (including Michael Andretti) find tough to control, Patrick simply is IndyCar.

As always, the world press and racing fans see Indy as "the" event of the racing year, surpassing any NASCAR or even Formula 1 race for prestige and excitement.

Even F1's signature event, the elegant, somewhat inbred and royal-tinged street race through the principality of Monaco, can't hold a candle to Indy and its legendary American action and kitsch, with Jim Nabors kicking-off the race festivities by singing "Back Home in Indiana," its celebratory swig of milk for the winner, its row of bricks at the start-finish line, bricks having originally made-up the entire 2-1/2 mile oval and the sheer, vast number of spectators who make the Indy 500 the largest single-day sporting event of any kind in the world.

Patrick's win at Motegi, Japan in 2008 was the first victory for a woman in a major open-wheel racing series

And, oh yeah, there are those 33 cars and their crazed drivers hitting speeds approaching 240 miles per hour on the track's near-one-mile long front straightaway.

Other sportspeople on the Time list included Kobe Bryant (my man) of the Los Angeles Lakers (#9!), Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal, who at #60 got the ad over Buddhist star Dalai Lama (#61) and Olympic swimmer and conservative target Michael Phelps.

Tiger Woods was in there, too, but I couldn't quite figure out where he ranked. That's because the poll and its results are pretty confusing, maybe intentionally so, to help spread the glory around as many people and categories as possible..

There were categories (Leaders & Revolutionaries, Builders & Titans, Artists & Entertainers, Heroes & Icons, Scientists & Thinkers) and because the voting was done on the Web, one Time editor wrote that, in essence, the results should be taken with more than a grain of salt; in fact, perhaps a mine-full.

President Barack Obama finished in 37th place (one behind good ol' boy Rust Limbaugh, four better than Miley Cyrus) and our own Arianna Huffington took 87th, one position better than White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and within ten places of Pope Benedict XVI, Jim Cramer, Sarah Palin, Bernie Madoff and John McCain. Quite a gang, anyway you look at it.

Patrick is everywhere - this is the cover of next month's SHAPE magazine; it's all in preparation for the Indy 500 and keeping her Big Momentum going

The top vote-getter was moot -- the 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, whose real name is Christopher Poole. He received 16,794,368 votes.

Danica Patrick, who just this week introduced a nifty new orange and black almost-Halloween style paint job on her Honda-powered Dallara race car, has as good a chance of winning the pole position and this year's Indy 500 as any other driver on the track.

Le Force Danica heads now for what should be the biggest race of her life, May 24's Indianapolis 500, and with the imprimatur of Time magazine to boot. Go Black/Orange 7!

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Comments

[KidChicago]

I have a friend whose in the band Bang Camaro (they're on Guitar Hero) and they were almost in that Go Daddy Indy 500 commerical. The people at Go Daddy were going to do the same sort of thing where you had to go to the internet to see unedited footage and get the full storyline, but instead of a commercial, it was gong to be a full music video for their song "Lady Lightning" with Danica Patrick as the video vixen Lady Lightning. At the last minute, they were told Danica's new agents wanted a more wholesome image (like Milk) so there wouldn't be any more lurid ads. It will be interesting to see what's so racy about this ad. How many times can Go Daddy cry "beaver"?

[Jack McCullough]

Influential? Who and what does she (or, for that matter, do Tiger Woods or any of the real athletes on the list) influence?

[bmnehls]

Can us IndyCar fans expect more articles from Huff Po in the future?

[olddognewtrick]

Can't wait to see her next photo spread.

[ramblingjohnny]

Number 10
Boris Johnson
By Conrad Black from cell block five! lolll Seriously what the hell was Time thinking?

[Steve Parker - Huffpost Blogger]

Conduct a "survey" on the Web and anything's likely to happen ...
Steve

[Jond0]

Who?

[michmudder]

Don't forget about #37 on the list: Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1893837_1894182,00.html

[wayoutleft]

danica patrick ?! and no mention of lewis hamilton breaking the F1 color barrier in tiger woods-like fashion!?

unfortunately, time fell off the list of the 100 most influential magazines.

[LoRiseAntlers]

maybe 1/10th of 1% of time readers even know who Lewis Hamilton is,and even less care about F1,which is nothing more than a stately processional for Ferrari.

[Calinative]

F1 no longer has even a single race in the United States, and no American drivers.

[Steve Parker - Huffpost Blogger]

F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone told an interviewer this week that when F1 fans grumble about Hamilton's race, they're "just expressing their opinion.." Ecclestone is the same a**hole who said, "Danica Patrick should dress all in white like all the other appliances" ..;. HOW does this guy stay in charge of the world's most-expensive and sophisticated racing series? And with that Max Mosley sidekick of his, whose parents were married at Hermann Goering's Berlin home, with Hitler in attendance, and who used F1 money to pay hookers to dress like Nazis and whip him ... WHAT is up with the leaders of that sport???
Won't find that in NASCAR - well, not exactly - maybe not so overt ...
Steve

[IMissAmerica]

Maybe she's a good driver but always playing on sex appeal doesn't give you credibility. As a woman I find her soft-porn GoDaddy ads really offensive. Do the male drivers in the sport even take her seriously?

[mudshark12]

When you got it, flaunt it. Besides, she never gets 100% naked on GoDaddy.

[Steve Parker - Huffpost Blogger]

Here's the latest --- the Danica TV spot GoDaddy has come out with for Indy is being CENSORED by the networks. Wonder how long the ad agency took to come up with THAT plan? If that doesn't get her more coverage, I don't know what else will ...
Steve

[Steve Parker - Huffpost Blogger]

Anytime she's in front of them, they take her seriously. And I guarantee you they love her for the attention she's bringing to the sport. ... her rising tide lifts all the boys, too ...
Steve

[Saidas]

Danica one of Time's 100 most influential people? My God, that doesn't say much for the rest does it? Why is she so influential? She is a good, but not great driver and has won one race due the mishaps of the drivers in front of her. She might be considered "hot for a race car driver" but other than that nothing special. If it wasn't for her relentless promotion (based on her looks and not her driving), she would be just another driver...like that other female Inday Car driver...oh what's her name.....

[ramblingjohnny]

The twitter guys are even on the list I got a feeling this 2009 list is Time mag jump the shark moment!

[Steve Parker - Huffpost Blogger]

Point is, for fans of open-wheel Indy-style racing, she's the great hope. She's proven herself capable on the track and, maybe more important, capable of taking direction and actually listening to her crew chief and working out race-winning strategies.
Yeah, I'm a big fan - obviously. No excuses for that! I'm a red-blooded American boy ... and there are plenty of American girls who love her, too.
But I'm a fan of motor racing, too, and she's JUST what the doctor ordered.
If IndyCar has any chance of regaining any of its prestige and giving NASCAR a run for its money, Danica's the only one who can do it - at least right now.
Steve

[cargocult]

I can honestly say , this is the first time i've seen her picture or read her name in about 8 months.

I know who she is (who could have missed the hype way back when), but I don't follow auto racing, and wasn't even sure she was still driving.

Good luck to her, but she doesn't might not make my personal list of the 1,000,000,000 most influencial people.

[ramblingjohnny]

I thought she was in NASCAR! If that how influential she was in 09 I hate to see what she does for 2010.

[Steve Parker - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, at least we're talking about her now. You're exactly who her sponsors want to reach - the casual fan, maybe the only racing fact you know is who wins the Indy 500. Used to be most Americans knew the Indy 500 winner. I don't know how true that is anymore, but I'd like to see a return to that as respected and necesary "general sports knowledge."
Steve