Kyle Petty on Danica Patrick

I haven't followed motorsports for maybe 20 years or so. While I was catching up on what I missed over the past 20 years, I found out that Kyle Petty was a consistent critic of Danica Patrick, saying that she's all hype/marketing and not a real race car driver.

It isn't surprising to find out that there was criticism of a woman who's a decent race car driver, and especially unsurprising to find that it came from a NASCAR driver -- NASCAR stands out for being and old boys club, even among motorsports, and motorsports stand out as being old boys clubs, even among big $$$ sports.

The funny thing about this is that Kyle and Danica and actually pretty similar in terms of their driving results (per race, relative to other drivers on the same circuit) and what they're known for. Statistically speaking, if you look purely at results, they have similar levels of performance, with Danica coming out with a slight edge. However, since NASCAR is basically the most nepotistic big $$$ sport in existence (sons of NASCAR drivers have about a 10% chance of becoming a NASCAR driver) and Danica ended up racing Indy and NASCAR with no familial connections (approximate odds for a random person becoming and Indy car driver are something like 0.00001%), she's probably some combination of more talented and hardworking. Additionally, Danica raced Indy, which appears to have better drivers than NASCAR (the most competitive circuit where Kyle drove) in much the same way F1 appears to better drivers than Indy (it's generally hard to make these comparisons, but you can see the F1/Indy difference from when Nigel Mansell switched from F1 to Indy and back).

Overall, they're both above average but unremarkable drivers for their circuit that almost no one would remember if it weren't for something off the track in combination with their driving. In Kyle's case, it's that he's the son a famous race car driver and in Danica's case, it's because she's the daughter of anyone at all. But, because Danica was someone's daughter, lots of people criticized her for not being a real driver, but if anyone should get criticized, maybe people should start with the 10% of NASCAR drivers who manage to skate in based on their parentage?