Breaking through racing’s asphalt ceiling
Somewhere out there in the future, a woman will drive her race car into victory lane at the end of a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race and lift the winner’s trophy high into the air.
That day will make history of a remarkable sort. Since 1949, when moonshine runners and various other hot rodders gathered near Charlotte to run the first race in what became the Cup series, the winner each time, through 2,546 races, has been a man.
The asphalt ceiling in NASCAR is harder to break through than most.
Although 16 women have raced in the Cup series sporadically over the years, none has approached winning.
Only one woman has scored a top-five finish, that being a fifth by Atlanta driver Sara Christian in the seventh race of the first season in 1949. Christian finished 10 laps behind winner Lee Petty in a field of 23 cars at Heidelberg Raceway, a halfmile dirt track in Pittsburgh.
The two women with the best opportunities to win in Cup have been Danica Patrick, whose NASCAR career ended with this year’s Daytona 500, and Janet Guthrie, who ran from 1976 to 1980. Patrick drove in 191 races in equipment that was at or near top level; Guthrie ran 33 times in midrange cars. Patrick scored seven top-10 finishes and Guthrie five. They are the only women to have started more than a dozen Cup races.
Patrick is scheduled to race for the final time in this month’s Indianapolis 500, closing her driving career in the IndyCar event in which she made big news with strong runs before detouring to NASCAR.
With Patrick’s departure from stock car racing, there are no women in leading-edge rides in any of NASCAR’s three national series.
Despite Patrick’s failure to score a topfive finish in five-plus seasons at the Cup level, many consider her a landmark figure, primarily because she brought wider exposure to stock car racing and opened the gates for more participation by women.
Although her NASCAR adventure fell short of expectations, Patrick retains a special place in American motor sports history because she is the only woman to win an IndyCar race. That victory came April 20, 2008, at the Twin Ring Motegi race course in Japan. She also made considerable noise in the Indy 500, finishing third and scoring six top-10 runs in seven appearances.
Patrick’s impending departure from major-league auto racing prompts two big questions: Who will replace her as the next female driver to challenge male dominance? And how long will it be before women are consistently challenging for victories at NASCAR’s top level?
“Danica opened the door for a whole slew of female drivers — both for IndyCar and NASCAR,” retired NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon said. “My question is how long it will be before we see the effects. Five years? Maybe 10 or 20? You have to look at quarter-midgets and go-karts and Legends cars and look for girls competing. If the number of girls in those cars isn’t increasing, it will be a long time. Thousands of race car drivers are trying to get into the 40 who race Cup. Already it’s tough.”
There is no universally accepted route to a Cup series ride, but a popular version includes racing in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and/or West series, followed by the Automobile Racing Club of America (which races on some NASCAR tracks) and then the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
Car companies and top NASCAR teams are investing time and money in developmental programs designed to give drivers who show talent in their teen years the best path toward success.
Toyota’s racing arm, responding to companywide diversity initiatives, is heavily involved in finding the best young female drivers and pushing them along the way toward the big time.
“We spend a fair amount of time combing all the data and analytics we can get,” said Jack Irving, Toyota Racing Development’s director of team and support services. “We figure out who’s available and how they race and who we want to go after and try to support.”
After drivers are identified, Toyota tests them on short tracks on non-race days before aligning them with K&N teams for competition. Among the female drivers in the Toyota timeline are Wisconsin native Natalie Decker, 20, and Hailie Deegan, 16, from California.
Deegan, daughter of motorcycle racing veteran Brian Deegan, races in K&N cars and has recorded three top-10 finishes in 2018. Decker has advanced to ARCAlevel competition and won the pole for an ARCA race in February at Daytona International Speedway, where she finished fifth.