Notebook: Danica Nation: Declare Your Citizenship!

June 2nd, 2005 | Category: Notebook | No Comments

Has open-wheel auto racing ever seen a craze quite like the one for Danica Patrick since she swept the world off their feet in this year’s Indianapolis 500?

Sure, there have been extremely popular drivers over the years like AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti and others. But their popularity developed over time (and stood the test of time, I might add). They were from a different age, when there was no such thing as 24 hour sports channels and the Internet, not to mention eBay, the world’s largest garage sale (or the world’s largest black market, depending on your perspective).

I did a quick search on eBay for “Danica Patrick” and found 562 items for sale. For comparison, I did a search on “Dan Wheldon” (the driver who actually WON the Indy 500!) and found only 52. Even more telling are the “completed items” over the last 30 days: 70 for Dan Wheldon, 900 for Danica Patrick! She has a way to go to catch “Dale Earnhardt” (which would include Jr.) at over 13,000 but hey, she’s only just begun.

Come to think of it, if you’re looking for Dan Wheldon / Indy 500 Winner memorabilia, now might just be one of the best times to pick some up… cheap! For example, I’ve seen a 1/18 diecast car signed by Dan go for about 20% of the price of a signed Danica Patrick car. Unbelievable.

But even more unbelievable are the prices some people will pay for things. An unsigned Danica hat for over $100? A signed diecast car for over $300? A signed 8×10 photo for $200? A qualifications ticket stub worth $5 with absolutely no connection to Danica Patrick except for her name in the item listing going for $35? C’mon people, have some common sense here!

Or try this: Search Google for Danica Patrick and you’ll get 497,000 results. Search for Dan Wheldon and you’ll get 178,000. Mario Andretti gets 217,000, Dale Earnhardt has 2,090,000, Michael Schumacher has 4,120,000 and Jeff Gordon has a whopping 15,600,000. Interesting. Someone smarter than me would have to provide some detailed analysis of this information for it to be of any use, but it might be worth doing another search a few months from now once all the internet weasels get their Danica Patrick “fan sites” up to make a quick buck.

Some of the Danica Patrick items on eBay are rather “interesting”, not to mention downright tacky. And then of course many of them are just plain illegal, due to the fact that they are unlicensed and make use of copyrighted photos. Just for fun, I’ve listed some of the goofier ones below.

Danica Patrick Watercolor “Painting”