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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.

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.

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.

Danica signs a three year deal to stay with Andretti Racing.

and I’m sure that there were fewer of you than there are of readers concerned with the Pirates and Reds, but Danica Patrick is close to returning to Andretti (Green) Racing.

That means no NASCAR for Danica.

And that means potentially fewer Danica tantrums, because her transition to stock cars wasn’t going to be a smooth one.

But hey, maybe there will be more Tissot ads.

Danica Patrick took a tour of Stewart-Haas Racing’s shop on Monday.

Danica’s going about this the right way–for her. She’s making herself visible in NASCAR circles, and in the current economic climate, has the power to turn down a package in stock cars if it’s not a direct route to the top. With her marketability, she has the leverage in this situation, and she knows it.

I still think her best bet is to stay in IndyCars, but that’s a little trickier now that Andretti Green Racing is clearly a step behind Penske and Target Chip Ganassi. Danica’s having the season of her career so far, and she very well could be contending for the championship if she was driving cars comparable to the top four. If AGR can pick it up in the second half, she’ll stay there. If not, well, maybe this NASCAR thing will happen.