Petty: Danica Would Win…If Nobody Else Showed Up

When Richard Petty talks, NASCAR fans usually listen.

When Petty says something like what he was quoted as saying over the weekend in Canada, they’ll listen...and respond.

At the Canadian Motorsports Expo on Sunday, the seven-time NASCAR champion was asked if Danica Patrick would ever win in the Sprint Cup Series.

His answer, according to the Wheels Automotive Network’s website, was old-school and unusually blunt for The King. 

“If everybody else stayed home,” Petty said.

Now, Richard Petty won 200 races at the top level of NASCAR and was a first-ballot NASCAR Hall of Famer. He’s a team owner now, and he followed up with an explanation of sorts that is not likely to win style points from Patrick or anyone else.

“If she’d have been a male, nobody would ever know if she’d showed up at a race track,” Petty was quoted as saying on the Wheels Automotive Network website. “This is a female deal that’s driving her. There’s nothing wrong with that, because that’s good PR for me. More fans come out, people are more interested in it. She has helped to draw attention to the sport, which helps everybody in the sport.”

Patrick is ready to begin her second full season in the top NASCAR series, and she knows she has to begin posting better results. She was 27th in points last year, with her best finish an eighth in the Daytona 500. She won the pole for that race as well, and both her race finish and starting position were firsts for a female driver.

A marketing machine, Patrick has improved at each step along the way in her NASCAR career. She, under the guidance of veteran crew chief Tony Gibson, is part of the now-four-car Stewart-Haas Racing operation.

We’ll see if there are any repercussions of what The King said in Canada.