Allen Bestwick

Unless you’ve been in a cave for the past week, you are aware of the fine effort and fourth-place finish of Danica Patrick in the Indianapolis 500. And it's just a matter of time before a woman gets a top opportunity to compete in NASCAR and win the Daytona 500.

More than
talent needed
Despite all of the advances for women in athletics, there are still relatively few competing at the very top levels of auto racing, so the idea of Patrick as a legitimate threat to win the “Greatest Spectacle In Racing” dominated coverage of the Indianapolis race. Far more people know Patrick finished fourth than know the name of the race winner (Dan Wheldon).

Since the Indianapolis race I’ve been asked why Patrick was able to achieve a higher level of success at Indianapolis than those of her gender who came before her. And I've also been asked when NASCAR will see a woman become a legitimate threat to win Nextel Cup races.

The answer to both questions is basically the same: When talent and opportunity meet in the same place at the same time.

A numbers game
The biggest obstacle to women becoming regular contenders at the top levels of American motorsports is simply the sheer number of competitors looking to do the same thing.

There are literally thousands of people driving racecars all across the United States each week, from Saturday night short-track, stock-car races to sports car clubs and much, much more.

Very few of these competitors will climb the ladder all the way to the NASCAR Nextel Cup level.

The percentage of these competitors that are female is still fairly small. It’s growing to be sure, but as a percentage it’s still very small.

So if the number of women in the pool of potential talent is small, it’s simple math that the number of women racers who will ever get the opportunity of reaching the NASCAR big leagues is smaller yet, and the odds of finding a winner are long.

Team matters
A huge hurdle for a driver aspiring for big-league racing success, male or female, is getting with a competitive team that has the equipment and financing needed to win races.

If you took Jeff Gordon out of the Hendrick Motorsports organization and put him with a small, underfunded team that can’t afford a top pit crew and the latest engineering technology, he’s simply not going to be as successful.

No question Gordon is a supremely talented driver very capable of winning, but he can only do so much to help a racecar from behind the wheel. If the car isn’t capable, it’s just not winning, period.

One huge thing Danica Patrick has going for her is that she is with a good team with adequate funding and engineering to field competitive equipment.

Understand that just having good equipment is not enough. A driver must have the talent to capitalize on the opportunity.

Those top rides are in high demand and if a driver isn’t up to the task, he or she won’t stick around long with a top operation. But in today’s auto racing you cannot win without a competitive team, period.

So if a woman driver has the talent to make it all the way through that maze of the lower levels of racing she still must find an opportunity in competitive equipment in order to have a good chance at success in the elite series.

Talent plus opportunity equals success. That’s the winning formula in racing. Take away either part of the equation and you don’t end up with success, you end up with struggles.