Full Throttle

The following quotes concern IndyCar’s darling Danica Patrick and come via Jeff Iannucci and the My Name is IRL blog. Jeff spotted this Danica statement in the current issue of the ESPN The Magazine:

“I want Angelina Jolie to play me. I’m sure anyone would want Angelina. Katie Holmes would be great too, but only if I get to meet her baby.” - Danica Patrick on whom she’d like to star in a movie about her life.

Jeff poses the obvious question, “who the heck is thinking of making this movie?”

It’s a question that answers itself really, as the line of screenwriters and money grubbing Hollywood hacks are probably in a line longer than (costumed) ticket buyers at a Star Trek convention. Jeff goes on to quote a passage from Danica’s book as it relates to either Angelina or Katie Holmes playing the role:

The safety belts that strap me into my car are pulled very tight across my hips and chest…I used padding in the Toyota Atlantic Series, but in Indy, you race at higher speeds and the extra padding allows for more movement in a crash, which I don’t want.

I want to be held in my seat as tight as possible because it’s safer. So that means I race in a constant state of excruciating pain and discomfort. As for the shoulder straps? Let’s just say I’m waiting until I finish my driving career to get that boob job!

The conclusion to be had from the above is Katie Holmes would be the choice to play the lead role if the movie were made while Mrs. Hospenthal (as Jeff calls her) was still driving and the more, ahem… buxom Jolie after the end of it.

Now, contrast the above with this story of a female racer who hails from Iran.

Laleh Seddigh, an Iranian racecar driver, really has an uphill battle, as described by Italian news service ADN Kronos International (AKI). Not only does she have to wear a full scarf and long coat over her racing uniform, but when she won a race last year, state television “did not show the new champion eleveted above men on the podium.”

Seddigh races in Formula Three in Bahrain and competes in rallies in Iran, because that’s the only category where women are allowed. She says she’s not a feminist and that she wants to act “within my country’s rules and tradition.”

The BBC continues Seddigh’s story in a March 2005 article and notes she is being called “a little Schumacher” in Iran.

Over the past two years, Laleh Seddigh, who drives a saloon car, has emerged as one of the most promising racing drivers in Iran, beating even the best of the men in a number of races.

I asked her how men felt about her success.

“Most of them, I think, are jealous, and I don’t care about that,” she says. “I am just going and going and hoping to be champion in the next years and I will really try to achieve that goal.”

Ms Seddigh says competing with men is not easy in Iran, but she hopes her example will encourage other women to follow suit.

That’s some contrast.

Not withstanding her “constant state of excruciating pain and discomfort,” Danica is worried about her six point harness “ironing out” a couple “things,” while Seddigh is racing wearing full scarf and long coat over her Nomex firesuit. Say, does anyone know of an Iranian factory that specializes in Nomex scarves amd long coats?

Somehow I doubt it.

If you think for a hot second Seddigh has an alter ego that manifests itself only on the race track, forget it. She has proven her credentials as a speed demon on the streets of Tehran by speeding at 4 times the posted limit and, ironically enough, as she whizzes by billboards of Ayatollah Khomeini. The only thing faster would be the revolutions turned by Khomeini in his well deserved grave.

Seddigh related stories: The Newswire reports Seddigh earned her International Racing Driving License during the BMW School Series at the Bahrain International Circuit in March this year. Link contains small image of Seddigh and here’s one in her firesuit but without scarf and long coat and an additional image taken before the start of the Arjan rally outside Tehran in 2005.

Laleh Seddigh, Iran, Danica Patrick, IndyCar, IRL, sports, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle