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Subject: Robby Gordon: "Girls have cooties!"
Posted by: KrazyKoalaBears
- [39462822] Sat, May 28, 2005, 23:16
Robby Gordon claims Danica Patrick has an unfair advantage.
Okay, so I'll admit that a 100 lb driver has a bit of an advantage, but this had me cracking up:
Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier.
Hey Robby, ever heard of Slim-Fast? Maybe the Atkins Diet? LOL! South Beach, maybe? "Please step away from the value meal."
"Right off the bat, a guy my size is spotting her 105 pounds," Gordon said. "That's the reason she's so much faster."
Yeah, it couldn't have anything to do with Gordon being a sucky driver, could it? And I'm sure it has nothing to do with Danica driving the car that a.) won the pole last year and b.) won the race last year with (drumroll, please) a 150-pound man (Buddy Rice) inside!
Funny, I don't recall hearing Gordon complaining about the 50 pounds he was giving up to a man. Then again, it's not all that embarassing to for a guy like Gordon to lose to a man. Now losing to a woman, that would be a completely different story. Good thing he's sticking to that awesome Nextel Cup team he's running this year. |
| 1 | Razor
ID: 474482823
Sun, May 29, 2005, 00:48
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I just wrote an email about how big of a loser this guy. It's one thing to be sexist. It's another to be stupid, outspoken and sexist...and a bad driver. Congratulations, Robbie. You've added the Biggest Whining Douche in Racing Award to go along with your I Share a Last Name with a Good Driver Award.
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| 2 | Great One
ID: 1049299
Sun, May 29, 2005, 10:19
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you may remember I wrote about how I used to race karts and sprint cars - I actually used to race against Danica Patrick (and Sam Hornish, Jr too) and he is right in saying the weight is a distinct advantage. But I think its more prevelant in what I was racing as they were lighter and it had a greater impact %.
But we always had weight minimums (with the car and driver roll onto a scale as they come off the track) that helped to even out the competitve balance. When I was 15 I was racing about 40 year old guys and we had to add weight to the frame to meet the minimum weight requirements. But even that was an advantage because you could choose where to place the lead etc... and if you are only making left turns - adding weight on the left side will give you an advantage in handling and helping you turn left.
We determined through practice and testing that being 10 lb's lighter was worth 1 tenth of a second. At 100 mph - 1 tenth is several car lengths... and that much every lap over the course of many laps can add up greatly.
Now I don't know how much an indy car weighs, I am sure its a few thousand pounds - but if that 10 pounds was helping me greatly on a frame that was between 600-800 lbs - I would think 100 lbs would be just as big an advantage even if the indy car weighed 3000 lbs...
i hope that made sense.
and yes Robby Gordon IS an idiot for saying that but underneath his stupidity he has a valid point about it being a competitive advantage.
The car AND driver should be weighed together and meet a weight requirement which would eliminate that advantage.
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| 3 | FRICK
ID: 3410101718
Sun, May 29, 2005, 12:38
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IIRC an IRL car weighs about 1500 pounds, but I beleive that is with an empty fuel tank.
So with a full fuel load that is probably 2000-2200 pounds with a driver.
I live in Indy and there was some discussion on a local talk show before Robbie's comments that they might start weighing the cars with the drivers in them.
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| 4 | KrazyKoalaBears
ID: 544422913
Sun, May 29, 2005, 15:00
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I agree that there's at least some advantage, but I don't recall Robby being outspoken about guys like Darren Manning (135 lbs) and Vitor Meira (141). The difference between both Manning/Meira and Patrick is less than the difference between Manning/Meira and Gordon's 200-pound ass.
Then again, Manning and Meira are both male.
I just hope Patrick finishes higher than Gordon's best ever Indy 500 finish (5th) so he can whine about that all day.
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| 5 | Guru
ID: 3143299
Sun, May 29, 2005, 17:30
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If weight is such a critical advantage, then why aren't the most successful drivers built like horse racing jockeys?
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| 6 | KrazyKoalaBears
ID: 22402920
Sun, May 29, 2005, 21:07
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4th place.
You somehow knew she would manage to 1-up him. LOL!
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| 7 | barilko6
ID: 551022715
Sun, May 29, 2005, 22:20
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You know what? Every sport has size, skill and mental advantages and disadvantages. I didn't hear Steve Nash complaining that Shaq is over a foot taller than him...Well, maybe he did...
If we want to make everything fair, lets just go out and get some robots, throw them into the car, ring, court, rink, diamond, and be done with it.
Gordon is an idiot.
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| 8 | Great One
ID: 1049299
Mon, May 30, 2005, 10:37
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Well like I said the sprint cars I race are under 1000 lbs... so the percentage of my weight to the car is greater as I weigh 210 lbs so about 1/4 of the overall weight... but it should be noted the EXACT reason I am NOT racing this year is because I am about 40 lbs over where I should be to be competitive and not giving away several tenths of a second each lap.
We decided not to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to just to ride around and hopefully shooting for top 5's all year and maybe steal a win somewhere along the way. For some that may be fine but I guess we are spoiled by winning consistenly in the past and competiting nationally.
Congrats to Danica on a great race too.
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| 9 | biliruben
Leader
ID: 589301110
Wed, Jun 22, 2005, 20:13
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I hope Ecclestone is simply senile...
Asked about Patrick's success, Ecclestone acknowledged her strong finish, but then made an assessment about women racing with men that caused a stir, saying, "You know I've got one of those wonderful ideas ... women should be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances."
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The 74-year-old told Autosport racing magazine in Feb. 2000 that women would never excel in Forumla One. He added that if a woman did make it, "she would have to be a woman who was blowing away the boys. ... What I would really like to see happen is to find the right girl, perhaps a black girl with super looks, preferably Jewish or Muslim, who speaks Spanish."
WTF?
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| 10 | KYCAT
ID: 38191616
Fri, Sep 16, 2005, 17:19
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...
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| 11 | bob
ID: 36543017
Sun, Jul 30, 2006, 18:54
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yall are picking at what he says because he's not winning as much as jeff gordon and others.
give him a freaken chance. he does not have that kind of advanced equipment. yall are all jerks
a huge fan
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| 12 | KrazyKoalaBears
ID: 15023167
Thu, Nov 02, 2006, 09:09
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Robby Gordon's a cheater, too.
Not all that surprising given how big of a jerk he is.
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| 13 | Rich
ID: 78112721
Thu, Sep 27, 2012, 22:11
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As said above, the old saying goes To make a small fotrune in racing, start with a large one. I ran 3 seasons in SCCA Club Racing's Formula Continental and did some US F2000 races as well, and ran a FABCAR Porsche 911 in some endurance events. I don't even want to mention what that cost. The lesson I learned was that TV coverage of a series is gold. US F2000 lost their coverage in 2002, and it is nearly impossible to get sponsors interested in a series when they wont see their' car on TV. Sponsorship is advertising, and if the ad isn't seen it's not effective. You will have to start out in karts or an inexpensive car in SCCA (or NASA) paying your own way until you can convince sponsors you can win and get them noticed. Formula Vee (like Steven) is a great class to start out in, as is Spec RX-7, Spec Miata, or Spec Racer Ford. The latter is a sports racer class that is fairly inexpensive (remember, this is an expensive sport/hobby all things are relative when I say inexpensive). Do a season or two in one of these, then try to move up to FC, F1000, or similar, or maybe T1/T2 or similar if you want to go touring car/GT racing later. Build seat time and experience, and build your resume and gain exposure. You will almost never find sponsorship in club racing, unless you have family or friends who throw a little help your way. Once you can consistently place in the top three and have some wins, you can move to trying to rent a seat in a car in one of the pro series. Grand Am and Speed World Challenge offer good programs with TV coverage; these are TC/GT series. If you want to go open wheel then the Formula Mazdas are THE way to go. Great package and great competition. You will be renting a seat (car) for the season (or maybe a few one-off races if the budget requires) from a team who owns and maintains the car, providing track support and a crew for you. This can run from $ 100k a season up to $ 500k and above depending on the series, the car, and which team (read: how competitive they are). To raise this money, you usually will need sponsors. You contract with a sponsor (or sponsors) to pay you $ X dollars in return for the exposure they will receive (in effect, you are selling them advertising to a key demographic). You are at this point a professional driver, and racing is now your job. To get such a highly sought after job, you will need a powerful resume, full of a greater amount of and higher-quality experience than others who are basically applying for the same job. You have to look the part, sound intelligent, and be someone the company trusts with their image, since you will become a spokesman and representative for them. Just like any job, you have to always strive to be the best around, and continually improve, because if you don't someone else will. It is a lot of hard work and sacrifice, but if you truly want to race at a high level as a career, it will be completely worth it in the end.Oh, and you don't HAVE to be under 25. It would really, really help, but if you want it bad enough the extra years you have driven street cars and experienced different things in traffic will at least help some, and the additional maturity can help shorten the learning curve. Search Elliott Forbes-Robinson and you'll see someone who can still get into a competitive car and compete at the pinnacle of sportscar racing, so there's not necessarily an expiration date. I'm 33 and having recovered from a broken back am now trying to get back into a car. But the younger you start, the more years you can compete, and seat time racing other cars is the only way you can gain experience and improve.
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