Danica Patrick won a historic pole at the Daytona 500 this past week, but despite taking the top spot in the Great American Race, some in the media have brought up the issue of her weight and how it relates to the heaviness and speed of her car on the track.
According to ESPN.com, the question of Patrick's body weight and how it relates to her car was brought up on Wednesday in comparison to other drivers on the Sprint Cup and if it gave her an advantage at Daytona. The rulebook states "drivers who weigh less than 180 pounds have to add 10 pounds to their car for every 10 pounds down to 140. Therefore, the maximum penalty would be 40 pounds," according to ESPN.com.
Officials said that it may have helped her on the track, but it is unlikely she received any competitive advantage. She arrived weighting 110 pounds, according to her team, which means that her car likely was about 30 pounds lighter than the car Jeff Gordon (who weighs 150 pounds) drove on speed testing day and qualified second.
The fourth and fifth place drivers Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman, who are Patrick's teammates, both exceed 180 pounds.
"There's two thought processes," series director John Darby said to ESPN.com when asked whether a lighter driver could have an advantage. "One is the heavier driver will help compress the springs more and help pull the car down out of the air. The other school of thought is any time you can save weight, you're saving weight. At the end of the day I don't think it matters."
The weight issue has been following Patrick for many years and the first time it came up was in 2005, when Robby Gordon said the driver had an unfair advantage at the Indianapolis 500. He stated that he would not compete in the event unless officials fixed the issue. He previously raced in NASCAR and said Patrick had an advantage because all cars weigh the same and no adjustments were made for the dimensions of the driver.
"The lighter the car, the faster it goes," Gordon said at the time. "Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds, and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier. I won't race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away."
Based on the IndyCar rules at the time, cars had to weigh 1,525 pounds before the driver and fuel were put in. In 2008, they changed the rules that the minimum weight would include the driver.
"If someone's going to take the hit, it's going to be me," she said at the time. "It's disappointing the league decided to do that. In so many other sports, athletes don't get penalized for being too strong or too tall or too fast. [It's] just your God-given stature is being penalized. What am I going to do, though? It's not my decision. That's the people higher up [who] made their bed, and they've got to lay in it."
In Sprint Cup, cars must weight 3,300 pounds based on a 180 pound driver, which is down from 200 last season. According to the report, Patrick could get an advantage because the 40 pounds she must add could be positioned in a lower center of gravity to keep the car going at a fast speed.
"What's a shame is everyone is pointing at Danica going, 'Oh, she's 40 pounds light,'" Darby said. "But what about Mark Martin [125 pounds]? ... There's half of the field that doesn't weigh more than horse jockeys anymore."
Both Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth dismissed the issues, saying if she keeps driving fast, they should add weight "on the roof".
