Now that Danica Patrick has won the pole for the 2013 Daytona 500 this Sunday on Fox, the media can begin this season’s most common pre-race question: “Will Danica Patrick become the first woman to win the Daytona 500?” And then it will be asked at the next race, the race after that and so on, because until she wins a race, it will be the easiest question a NASCAR writer can write. Seriously, I could wake up, write it on a napkin, and sleep four more hours before I even had to be up for brunch at Hooters.
But over the past three months, a few people have been asking a much different and somewhat more intriguing question: “Can a woman hang with a NASCAR pit crew?” For as long as stock car racing’s grandest stage has existed, everything from the steering wheel to the impact wrench has belonged (mostly) to men, and as Patrick looks to change that on Sunday, another woman wants to change pit crews forever as well.
