The only places I have seen Danica Patrick are in the garage area at Indianapolis, on the podium at a gathering celebrating the use of Ethanol in racing, on a life-sized cardboard cut-out in a souvenir store and on a box of Hostess Twinkies at a Meijer store in Avon, Ind.
Oh, and in a picture in Sunday morning’s newspaper as winner of the Indy Japan 300 at the Twin Ring Motegi.
Congratulations to her and her Andretti Green Racing team.
Boos to the members of the media who didn’t do their homework.
The New York Times’ Dave Caldwell wrote, “Danica Patrick became the first woman to win a major auto race on Sunday, using successful fuel strategy to capture an IndyCar Series event in Motegi, Japan.”
Curt Cavin claimed in the Indianapolis Star that “Patrick became the first woman to win a major auto race by capturing the IndyCar Series’ event at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Japan.”
Dave Lewandowski of indycar.com wrote, “Patrick, competing in her 50th IndyCar Series race, became the first female to win a major auto racing event on a closed-course circuit.”
The designation is because Jutta Kleinschmidt of Germany won the Paris to Dakar Rally in 2001.
Gentlemen, start your ingenuity.

While Patrick recorded a personal milestone and should be proud of her accomplishment, she likely would be the first to acknowledge that it is one victory. The National Hot Rod Ass’n — drag racing — has not one, but two women who have earned three professional series titles: Shirley Muldowney (Top Fuel) and Angelle Sampey (Pro Stock Motorcycle).

That’s right — be original. Try something new — such as understanding what you cover. Be the first to put Patrick’s achievement in perspective. Say that Patrick became the first woman to win an IndyCar Series event. Period.
While Patrick recorded a personal milestone and should be proud of her accomplishment, she likely would be the first to acknowledge that it is one victory. The National Hot Rod Ass’n — drag racing — has not one, but two women who have earned three professional series titles: Shirley Muldowney (Top Fuel) and Angelle Sampey (Pro Stock Motorcycle).
On a day when Muldowney rejoiced in Patrick’s victory and those by the International Hot Rod Ass’n’s Laurie Cannister (Alcohol Funny Car) at Rockingham, N.C., and Swiss driver Simona De Silvestro in the Atlantic Championship race at Long Beach, Calif., the racing trailblazer lamented the media oversight.
“It’s very hurtful,” said Muldowney, the woman who established that females are capable of dominating on the track. “What it does is prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are so many who don’t do research. It’s truly not fair at all.”
She spoke for the long line of female race winners in drag racing. She spoke for eight other women who have won major national events in the 57-year history of NHRA —Shelly Anderson, Lori Johns, Lucille Lee, Cristen Powell and Melanie Troxel in Top Fuel and Sampey, Peggy Llewellyn and Karen Stoffer in Pro Stock Motorcycle.
Last September, Llewellyn became the first black woman to win an NHRA race. Sampey has won 41 races and led the field 44 times.
Ashley Force leads the NHRA Funny Car standings. Barbara Hamilton, in 1964, was the first female to receive an NHRA license, and in 1966, Shirley Shahan broke the gender barrier in NHRA competition, winning the Stock class trophy at the Winternationals in Pomona, Calif. This column doesn’t have enough space to list the names of NHRA and IHRA female competitors, who, incidentally, are not novelties in drag racing.
 Italy’s Maria Teresa de Filippis broke through in Formula One in the late 1950s, and Lella Lombardi followed in the mid-70s. Also on the F-1 scene have been Giovanna Amati, Desire Wilson and Divina Galica. So please, let Patrick enjoy simply being a racer and a winning racer — and stop canonizing her with false credentials. She is capable of earning her own, legitimate ones.
Such ignorance by reporters is shameful. Industry insider Michael Knight said in his SpinDoctor500 blog, “This, once again, proves that some other sanctioning organizations and wide sections of the mainstream news media look down on drag racing as ‘blue collar’ and not up to their white-collar ‘major status.’”
Perhaps here is the appropriate place to remember that NHRA drag racing was for years the second-most watched form of motorsport behind NASCAR — while the open-wheel owners were quarreling, posturing and chasing away fans.