W elcome to the latest Happy Hour mailbag! You know how these work: You write us w ith your best rant/ joke/one-liner at happyhournascar@yahoogroups.com or on Twitter at @jaybusbee , we respond to your messages, everyone goes away with a smile on their face. So I was off NASCAR duty this past weekend covering the NCAAs. While the Cali race was proceeding, I was in the Georgia Dome watching Kentucky treat Baylor the way Juan Pablo Montoya treats jet dryers. And it got me to thinking: there were about 60,000 people in the Dome, and the place was absolutely rocking. We need to just start running NASCAR in smaller arenas. No more superspeedways. We ought to run NASCAR in, like, municipal auditoriums. Sellouts every week! Your letters. And a rather dull race at Cali resulted in ... well, a mixed mailbag. Let's begin with an old favorite. If I hear Ray Evernham or Marty Smith say one more time that the expectations placed on Danica Patrick are "unfair," I may smack them both! She chose this path and she is mentally tough - she can handle the expectations and doesn't need to be coddled. I am astonished when I hear these journalists/commentators say I shouldn't expect her to be in the mix at the end of the race. There are still nuances that she hasn't quite grasped but she learns faster than a lot of drivers I've seen in the recent past, and one of her best strengths is that she FINISHES races, which is half the battle! She and Tony Stewart have made no secret of the fact she is planning a full time move to Cup next year. Is it really that "unfair" for me to expect her to be competitive in the series that develops drivers for Cup? — Sue Bilger Seattle, WA Danica Patrick is now a Rorschach blot. We each imprint ourselves onto Danica (not literally, you sickos; there are laws) and we see what we want to see. Is she a coddled, undeserving IndyCarpetbagger? Is she a courageous woman not afraid to take a stand in a man's world? Is she a hot little thang who spends a lot of time in something less than a firesuit? Depends on who you are and what you bring to the table. I will say that Patrick has done exactly what she should have: risen above all this and been herself. She's sometimes witty, sometimes cranky, but never particularly apologetic about who she is. Which is exactly the right thing to do; the moment you start trying to be someone you're not, the masses will eat you alive. (Again, not literally. Laws against that, too.) Patrick will be just fine; you want an example of hype without sustainable results, take a look at Jeremy Lin. Let's give her the same margin for error we've given, say, Joey Logano, OK? Though let's not ask Joey to pose for Maxim anytime soon. The comparison only goes so far.
