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The girl’s got some work to do. Two crashes (neither completely her fault, but fault isn’t listed in the official scorebox) and one finish three laps down thanks to a plethora of pit road speeding penalties and general slowness on the track.

She’s not back in a stock car until the end of June thanks to the IndyCar season, and that next Nationwide race is at New Hampshire, a very tricky track for NASCAR veterans.

Patrick also participated in an IndyCar test last week and was slow there too, but who knows if that has anything to do with her dalliance in stock cars.

The woman’s still a marketing machine and three races in to a stock car career for someone who hadn’t been in a full-bodied vehicle is way too small of a sample size to draw any conclusions but to say that it’s even more evident now that she’s got her work cut out for her.

If it felt like the longest Daytona 500 in history, don’t worry, it was. 520 miles, to be exact.

Oh, you meant the red flags for the pothole? Yeah, those were 150 minutes.

But outside of the pothole–damn you Daytona asphalt!–that was an exceptional race, only ruined by that hole in the asphalt and some ridiculous commentating by the Fox television crew.

Jamie McMurray won, his second win in a row in which he may not be the main story. He won at Talladega in 2009 when the new (and inevitably temporary) bump drafting rules made for an awful race, and now here, where the pothole may bump him from the pedestal that he deserves. (McMurray could make a career of being the overlooked guy. Of the three “local” drivers in the KC metro area, McMurray is unheard of while all of the attention focuses around Clint Bowyer and Carl Edwards)

OK, enough about the pothole. The racing during the 500 was fantastic. It produced the most different leaders in the history of the race (21) and the three attempts to finish the race with two laps to go were exceptionally dramatic. That third to last restart when Harvick, Truex and Biffle were playing bumper cars going into turn one for the lead? Yeah, that doesn’t get much better if you’re a hardcore NASCAR fan or one tuning in for the first time.

Thing is, you had to have been a hardcore fan to hang in for that long. 6.5 hours for a race telecast with no rain is insane.

But the telecast? Oh boy. There was Chris Myers’ bumbling sociological point that Danica Patrick could be an exemplary figure for a modern women’s empowerment movement, and Darrell Waltrip’s flat out cheering for Dale Earnhardt Jr. as Junior charged from 10th to second on the final lap. (Hell yeah that was impressive. He was loose coming off of turn two.) The whole Fox telecast seemed disjointed after the last red flag. (Go here tomorrow for more.)

So yeah, screw you, pothole. You almost ruined an incredible race.

By the time you read this, Danica Patrick may not be alive, for it’s entirely possible that she’s currently drowning in a pool of the media’s slobber.

Late this week, Danica said that it wasn’t her mission to be the big story at Daytona, and she’s done nothing to bring attention to herself other than racing the car. You know… the same thing that 42 other drivers did Saturday.

Yet, that statement was met with derision by many media members. It’s obvious that two camps have broken in media circles: those obsessed with Danica’s every move, and those angered by that obsession.

(side note: Kroger Floral was giving media members roses on Thursday. A media member jokingly gave his rose to Danica to signify the media’s obsession with her. Those in the “angered” camp were furious with said media member, lambasting him on twitter. Even to the point of calling him unprofessional. Those two camps have shown the public what’s bad about NASCAR media coverage this week)

ESPN’s VP in charge of race telecasts said that he was impressed with Speed’s ARCA coverage of the race that Danica was in last week and wanted to model ESPN’s coverage of today’s race like Speed’s. (For those that didn’t see the Speed coverage, you could see DW’s spittle flying from the press box down onto the GoDaddy car. And, by the way, the ARCA race got better ratings than Pens-Caps, NCAA Basketball on CBS, golf on NBC and the NBA on ABC)

And man, was ESPN’s coverage Danica-centered. The ticker, which displays the positions of everyone in the field, simply wasn’t enough at times. So therefore, Danica got her own graphic below the ticker.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Danica and her people are the best in motorsports at using the media to their advantage. However, that power has its drawbacks, and Daytona Speedweeks was a perfect example. The media doesn’t have an off switch, especially when it comes to attractive females driving cars.

That gray headline over there has been up since early this evening.

Yes, Jimmie Johnson did crash in Wednesday’s practice for Thursday’s qualifying races for the Daytona 500 (got that?), but Stewart didn’t. In fact, he wasn’t anywhere near the accident when the accident occurred.

Mike Bliss got loose coming off of turn four and collected Joey Logano as he smashed into the wall. Johnson, trying to check up in the wreck, hit Denny Hamlin’s rear bumper and spun around.

So why does an editor at NBC think that Stewart was in the crash despite not one single mention of him in the story? Well, my guess is that he/she still thinks that Stewart is in the #20 car, the car that Logano currently drives. Never mind that Logano is already one of NASCAR’s most recognizable drivers and won at New Hampshire. While inaccurate, I do appreciate the copy editor’s association of Stewart in the #20 car. I’m glad I’m not alone in wishing that he was the driver of the Home Depot car forever.

Of course, none of you do so it’s a moot point.

But anyway, today may be the biggest non-Daytona 500 day of racing in Daytona Speedweeks history.

Usually, pole day for the Daytona 500 is on Sunday, but the Super Bowl is obviously tomorrow, so instead it’s today. And per usual, the Budweiser Shootout unofficially kicks off the race season tonight with a 24 car, 75 lap exhibition race that may come down to which car can crash the least.

And for many, sandwiched between the two, is the main event. Danicamania.

Yes, today’s the day when Danica Patrick races in a stock car for the first time. She qualified 12th, and has one of the best cars in the field, but it’s an ARCA race. ARCA races at Daytona tend to turn into demolition derbies that seemingly involve blind drivers. There are moments when you can’t believe that a driver doesn’t slow down to avoid a wreck much further up the in field and then subsequently wonders why the heck he got caught up in the mess. (Last year, this happened late in the race, and led to a fractured back for one of ARCA’s best drivers)

However, Danica isn’t the only female driver in the field for the ARCA race. There are four others, but none of them have either the looks or the marketing prowess that Patrick does. (Though I guess you have to give Jennifer Jo Cobb some credit for trying. She’s taken advantage of the economic stimulus and gotten new hair, teeth and boobs)

How will Danica do? Well, I’m already on record as saying that she’s going to win today, so I’ll stick with it. Remember, this is ARCA. It ain’t rocket science. It’s crash avoidance.

Some of you will take issue with the word “playing.” Sorry, it’s a good headline.

Denny Hamlin, one of the top drivers in Sprint Cup, tore his ACL Friday playing pickup basketball.

And since the season unofficially starts in two weeks, Hamlin will have to wait until around Thanksgiving to have the surgery.

Yikes.

The injury was to Hamlin’s left knee, which is his braking leg, so the circumstances could be worse. The ACL primarily is involved in stabilization during knee flexion and Hamlin shouldn’t be extremely hampered because the angle of a driver’s knee doesn’t change much during the course of a race. Some modifications will probably have to be made, however, to the cockpit of Hamlin’s car to allow him more room to extend his leg.

But where Hamlin is going to feel it most is outside of the car. Getting around for seven months with a torn ACL has to be a chore.

Yes, it’s official that Danica Patrick is coming to the Busch* Series, so you now can all go buy your #7 GoDaddy NASCAR shirts and wear them with pride.

That was expected, but what wasn’t–at least plausibly anyway–was GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons’s public expectations for Danica.

As of now, she’s going to do about 20 Busch* races amongst the full IndyCar season, and–if Parsons’s plan go as expected–make the full time transition to the Sprint Cup series in 2012.

What car would she drive? Well, that’d be the #5 of Hendrick Motorsports, the car that’s currently driven by Mark Martin.

Seriously.

GoDaddy is sponsoring the #5 in 20 races in 2010 and 2011, and Martin recently signed a two-year extension with Hendrick that will most likely take him to the end of his career. Those factors were known as soon as the 2009 season ended.

But Danica taking over for Martin? Now that one was kind of unexpected.

How would that Hendrick Motorsports marketing juggernaut look then? Jeff Gordon would still be in the fold, as would Dale Earnhardt Jr. unless his marketing power went the way of his appearances in Victory Lane, and of course Jimmie Johnson would still be there and at the rate things are going now, he’d probably be a five or six time champion at that point. Throw in the most marketable driver in all of motorsports on top of that–and assuming the economy hasn’t crashed by then–Hendrick Motorsports would have enough money to buy NASCAR and the tracks it races on.

However, I have serious doubts about this all happening. No one knows how Danica is going to transition to stock cars, and that includes Danica herself, who says that she can’t remember the last time she sat in a stock car and doesn’t know the differences between one and an IndyCar. (Would a driver be saying this knowing that he or she wasn’t a foolproof cash cow with a guaranteed seat based on his or her marketing power? Hell no)

Danica is going to struggle. She hasn’t set the IRL on fire, and the IRL’s champion–Dario Franchitti–was absolutely horrible at driving a stock car. If Mrs. Ashley Judd can’t do it, why could Danica?

I’ll be surprised if Danica does well and ever makes it to Sprint Cup, let alone be competitive.

–Silly season has been pretty quiet so far, with no real big driver or crew chief moves. The big moves (Truex to MWR, Keselowski to Penske) were announced during last year, and so the drivers who are out of rides right now are going to have to settle for start and parks or startups with a very limited budget.

–Looking over the paint schemes for 2010, Tony Stewart’s Old Spice car has my vote for best of the year, with Dale Jr.’s National Guard scheme close behind.

–Kyle Busch is going to be starting his own truck series team in 2010, and the plans will be officially announced Friday. He may field up to three trucks–depending on sponsorship of course–and is going to run a good portion of the season himself, so he’s already the odds on favorite to visit Victory Lane more than any other driver in the truck series.

–Busch isn’t running the full Busch* season in 2010 unless he can convince JD Gibbs otherwise, so look for Carl Edwards to be the odds-on favorite for the title. This could be the weakest season of competition in recent memory for the Busch* series, with Cup drivers in Cup equipment taking up the top 10 and start and parks filling up the bottom 10 or 15.

–Yes, there is going to be a Larry the Cable Guy car in the Daytona 500…

–I’d post something about the year-end banquet, but even I didn’t watch. I watch enough NASCAR during the season that I don’t need to be subjected to four hours of talking and scripted speeches.

Giant flop.

She sure knows how to work the media though, so you’ve got to give her credit for that.

Rumors swirled that she was announcing a partnership to do a NASCAR and IRL schedule, or that, even worse, she was announcing that she was going to make her stock car debut in the ARCA race in Daytona in February.

Instead, it was a new paint scheme for her IRL car.

Must have been a slow day on Good Morning America.

Jimmie Johnson wrecks on lap two after Sam Hornish gets into him after being tapped by David Reutimann.

And NASCAR officials collectively breathe a HUGE sigh of relief.

For a few reasons:

1. Before the race, the sanctioning body issued a decree to the drivers that there was to be no bump-drafting in the corners, and that a violation of the rule would lead to immediate penalization. (NASCAR 101 moment: Talladega is one of two tracks where the cars run a restrictor plate that restricts air intake to the carburetor, which slows the cars down and limits acceleration. Because the cars are unable to break away from each other–and the banking at Talladega is such that they can run flat out around the track–the cars run in packs, and bumping the car in front of you has become the preferred way of making a pass on a car in a different line without breaking your own momentum) Well, this isn’t a new rule, as it has been understood that there should be no bump-drafting in the corners in the past, but this was the first time that NASCAR was actually going to enforce the rule.

And, to make matters even more complicated, NASCAR announced that the driver getting bumped would also be penalized. Yes, you read that correctly. Now I assume that was to make sure that the driver in front didn’t drag the brake to force the driver behind to run into him (and draw a penalty) but given the inability of the car in front to pull away, there’s nothing much a driver can do if he’s getting pushed by the car behind him.

So as the drivers were left to ponder the sudden hard-line statement from NASCAR just two hours before the race, their response was obvious: they weren’t going to push the limit. Heck, they weren’t going to come close to pushing the limit.

What resulted was one of the most boring races in Talladega memory. Long segments of the race turned into single-file conga lines, with 35+ cars spaced evenly apart, all with no intentions of passing. When they did form multiple racing lines, the action wasn’t as intense as usual, and drivers were asking their crews–only half-kidding–to help keep them awake.

2. While the racing did pick up a bit in the final laps, the no bump-draft in the corners rule might have caused the first big wreck of the day. With five laps to go, Tony Stewart was forced to check up entering turn 3, a check up that was possibly magnified because of the new situation. Ryan Newman, his teammate, was behind him, and he swerved hard left in an attempt to avoid Stewart. The hard turn sent Newman into a slide, and he was turned backwards by Kevin Harvick. Once the car was backwards, it took off. Literally. That’s the second time a car has gone airborne at Talladega this year, and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a serious design flaw–whether it’s the rear wing or the roof flaps–that is allowing these cars to take off so easily. Newman was very direct towards NASCAR and their attempts (or lack thereof) to fix the racing at Talladega after walking out of the infield care center. (Not to mention the fact that after Newman landed upside down, it took 12 minutes to get him out)

3. The Chase is now really over. Jimmie Johnson ran around the back of the pack all day in an attempt to avoid the big crash and ended up avoiding two of them and finished sixth. Mark Martin, who is still in second place, was caught up in the final wreck, a big melee one lap from the finish, and ended up flipping two times before his car settled right side up, unlike Newman’s. Martin is now 184 points behind Johnson, which is more than a whole race’s worth. Johnson’s day was made better by some bizarre fuel strategy by drivers that were in front of him. Newman’s crash caused a lengthy delay, and because of that delay many drivers ran out of fuel instead of playing it safe and getting some fuel after the crash like Johnson did. Even Johnson’s teammate, Jeff Gordon, ran out of fuel before the final restart and had to be pushed to pit road.

4. Oh, Jamie McMurray won the race.