Notable Quotables: Danica Stealing Thunder From Other Drivers?

Thanks to the services of FastScripts by ASAP Sports, photographer/writer Steve Langley was able to get transcriptions of some of the interviews held with various NASCAR drivers during the recent Sprint Sound & Speed event in Nashville, Tennessee.

Since Danica Patrick seems to be a topic brought up frequently in stock car racing circles, we collected some appropriate Danica quotes from these transcriptions for your enjoyment…

MIKE BLISS: I think Danica is going to steal a lot of the thunder from all of us drivers till her first or second race. There’s a lot of emphasis on her. She’s somebody that everybody is going to be watching at Daytona. …. The camera is going to be on her. A lot of pressure.

CARL EDWARDS: (on Danica coming to stock cars) It’s going to be tough. Honestly, I thought at first there’s no way. But then I heard just yesterday, my buddy was telling me testing she was really, really fast. I mean, you never know. What I’ve been saying from the beginning is I think for her to be successful over here will be a huge benefit to not only her and her sponsors but our whole sport. So I hope she does well, not any better than me, but I hope she does really well. But I think it’s going to be tough, just like it is for everyone.

KYLE PETTY: Here is what I say. She is an incredibly talented driver. Can this be huge for her and for NASCAR? Yes, it can. Obviously open wheel built what the sport it is right now off of her because it was a floundering sport. That’s not a criticism of that sport or what they do, because the guys over there are incredible drivers, too. But the sport was not growing like NASCAR was growing. So they took her and that marketing machine, the marketing machine she is, and they went there.

She’s not really shown over there and won races and done the stuff over there, numbers wise, she’s just a marketing machine. So when you look at it like that, from what she does on the racetrack, I hope she’s successful. But let’s look at the facts and be blunt about it. She’s going to help the sport. She’s going to help the publicity of the sport. She’s going to help a lot of that stuff. But in the end, will she perform on the right side? It’s going to be all on her shoulders to do that.

DALE EARNHARDT, JR.: Yeah, I’m kind of going into it with an open mind. I mean, it’s going to be an uphill battle for her to do well. But I think she can. She’s a racecar driver. She should be able to adapt and do whatever she needs to do. We’re going to give her the best tools we can. I don’t know if there’s a perfect owner or whatever. But, you know, we’ll just do the best we can for her. She has been in a car. Pretty happy with how that’s gone. Pretty happy with what we’ve seen. I love her attitude. She gets along great with Tony, Jr. All that stuff is going better than planned. We just need to get to the racetrack. I mean, she’s been around Daytona. Went to Orlando tested. Need to run some laps. I hate testing myself. But, you know, the policy as it is now, it’s difficult for someone like Danica to come in and really try to understand the cars, get to know them. We’re going through that challenge, trying to help her as much as we can. But feel pretty good about it. I don’t know what she’ll do. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to sort of guess on how her performance will be or what her stats will look like. We’ll just have to see.

DALE EARNHARDT, JR.: (on what his dad and grandfather would say about the changes to the sport, including Danica’s moving to stock cars) I don’t really know. I didn’t know my grandfather. But dad would probably have a thing or two to say about what’s going on. I really don’t know what that would be, so… We can only speculate (laughter).

Q. Kyle (Busch), a lot of people have said Danica’s move to NASCAR is a publicity stunt. What are your thoughts on it?
KYLE BUSCH: Thanks (laughter).

TONY STEWART: I thought publicity stunts were when you tied yourself to a tree or something like that.
KYLE BUSCH: I don’t think it’s a publicity stunt. I think she’s serious about her racing, what she’s done. She’s done a great job in the IndyCar Series in the years she’s been there. She’s won a race. She’s had multiple top five, top 10 finishes. She’s been in contention for a lot more than that to win races.

I think her relationship with Go Daddy kind of brought her into the relationship with Dale Earnhardt, Jr., I feel like. But I feel like with the testing that they’re already doing, finding racetracks to get her at, finding racetracks to get her experience at with herself and Kelly Bires, too, he’s familiar with the car she’s getting into. Her being in Daytona to get accustomed to the ARCA cars to get her start there in order to see if she’s ready for the Nationwide race, they’re not playing a joke about it.

I think she’ll do fine. She’s got plenty of resources behind her. She’s got plenty of help to go to. She is kind of in the same organization with Hendrick Motorsports, so she has all those drivers to feed off of. I wish her the best. We’ll see her out on the track, I’m sure.