Kyle Petty: Danica Patrick ‘Not A Race Car Driver, Too Late To Learn’
Kyle Petty, the Fox Sports/TNT analyst and son of NASCAR star Richard Petty, spoke out about Danica Patrick Thursday night on SPEED’s
But in the interview with Matt Clark he tossed in another twist about why Kyle Petty will never view Danica Patrick as a genuine race car driver. “[I]t’s too late to learn,” he said.
He once again repeated a popular theme of his, summed up in this statement:
“She can go fast, but she can’t race. I think she’s come a long way, but she’s still not a race car driver. And I don’t think she’s ever going to be a race car driver.”
Maybe not, but Danica Patrick appears to be in her first full season in the Sprint Cup Series, while Kyle Petty looks like just another bitter former racer.
A Yahoo! report on Petty’s latest slam against Patrick noted that he struggled for success in the wake of his father’s incredible legacy as one of NASCAR’s all-time greats.
And reporter Nick Bromberg can’t resist pointing out that Danica Patrick may already be a better driver than Kyle Petty ever was:
“Patrick’s average finishing position this season (25.8) is better than Petty’s average finish in seven of those 10 seasons” he spent driving for his father’s team.
To his credit, Petty knows he wasn’t a great driver, and he was open to calling himself a journeyman. Not every driver can be a star. But he seems to hold Patrick to a higher standard than he holds himself.
And he just won’t let go. Here’s a 2010 interview where Petty called Danica Patrick a marketing machine who could go fast but just didn’t know how to bring in a race:
The song sounds exactly the same, and it hasn’t gotten any prettier over the years.
What’s your reaction to Kyle Petty’s new slam against Danica Patrick?
[Danica Patrick photo by nickleford via Wikimedia]
