Brain Damage?

There is much angst about concussions in the NFL, but I’m seeing some evidence that perhaps we should be looking a what might be causing brain damage in NASCAR. From a Q&A with Danica Patrick this week, whose team is switching from Chevrolet to Ford;

Q. Have you done anything different to prepare for this season?

A. I don’t think there’s a whole lot to do different. I’ve been more proactive with what it’s going to take to do better, so sitting down with (crew chief) Billy (Scott), I didn’t feel like we really ended up where we wanted to be last year. We felt like we would be better, so I asked the question, ‘What are we going to do different? Because if we’re going to do the same thing, we can only expect the same results. So what can we change that’s going to change that?’

I say all the time that if you want something you’ve never had before, you’re going to have to do something you’ve never done. I think ultimately the most important thing overall is that everybody shows up to work not to (just) work, but to work great and be great. What can we do different? There are some answers and there are some that you don’t have answers for because if you knew the exact answer to be better, you would have done it already.

Shorter version, “There isn’t anything you can do different,” followed by, “we didn’t wind up where we wanted to be last year.” Since she finished 24th in the standings, I would hope not. Then, having been asked what she did different, she tells us that she asked the team what they were going to do different, having just told us there wasn’t anything that could be done different.

It goes downhill from there and ends with the little gem that, “if you knew the exact answer to be better, you would have done it already,” which is just fucking brilliant.

Read the whole thing, because the rest of her answers are equally entertaining and equally uninformative. The writer doesn’t ask her why last year’s sponsor failed to pay the promised sponsorship money, leading to the team’s current lawsuit, but I have an idea that it runs along the line of “Your car was never on television except when it crashed, so we didn’t get our money’s worth.”

Her car was, of course, on television each time the leader passed it to put her another lap down; but that, too, is not the kind of coverage a sponsor really craves.