NASCAR Worried? Danica’s Win Could Spell Trouble

While several of NASCAR's best and brightest were strutting their stuff in Mexico, where Kyle Busch won yet again in the Nationwide Series, stock car racing was being upstaged, for once, by the Indy Cars. It's been awhile since that happened.

The embattled, but finally unified, Indy Racing League got a long awaited boost when Danica Patrick won for the first time. The first female IndyCar winner broke through in her 50th attempt.

NASCAR greatly benefited from the open-wheel split that lasted more than a decade. When it happened, in 1996, Indy Cars were a potent, if already troubled, force in American motorsports. By the time the split finally ended this year, the long term decline in attendance and television ratings had relegated IRL and Champ Car alike into a once great, but trivialized, outpost of the sport.

So what happens next? Does Patrick's victory spur a long term restoration or just a short term boost? How does it affect NASCAR? Does a rise in open-wheel interest create a fall for NASCAR? Or is the health of motorsports overall beneficial for all parties?

There is no Danica Patrick on the NASCAR horizon. Women have occasionally competed but without notable success. NASCAR diversity efforts have been focused on ethnicity, not gender, in part because the modest success stories have mostly involved men.

This week, Patrick will enjoy the kind of acclaim normally reserved for a Daytona 500 or Indy 500 victor. Her victory occurs at almost a perfect time, leading into the tradition-filled month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Patrick was featured in a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue pictorial earlier this year. She is attractive, articulate and vitally concerned with her image. There won't be any reluctance on her part to capitalize on the attention. More at AOL Sports

[Editor's Note: See related rumor about Lil' E needs to get "the call" now to win this weekend at Talladega and stop the Danica Patrick juggernaut.]