In Defense of Milka Duno or Why Ashley Judd and Danica Patrick need to shut the Hell up

As usual, it was a full day of racing for me today, with Formula 1 in Bahrain and the Sprint Cup in Talladega, I watched the Indy Racing League's first oval race of the season, the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300, at Kansas Speedway, and with it the season debut of my favorite Open-wheel driver, the lovely and talented Milka Duno.

Of course, to hear the talking heads and the tweeter-holics in the blogosphere, you would think it was Mr. Magoo driving a Maxwell instead of a sophisticated Dallara chassis with a Honda engine. 

Milka Duno sits on the pod of her SAMAAX Racing CITGO race car before her 2007 Indy Racing League debut at Kansas Speedway. 

(Photo Credit: St. Petersburg Times)

For the last couple years, I've heard the same things over and over whenever Milka is mentioned, "Human Chicane," "slow and dangerous," and "she has no business out there." Most of these comments, though, are out of the mouth of Ashley Judd, AKA Mrs. Dario Franchitti, from back in 2007, although bloggerheads like Kurt Van Der Dussen of the Bloomington, IN, Herald Times are proud to be one of the torch carriers when it comes to the Anti-Milka Militia. 

Look, I'm going to put this as easy as possible, since most of the Anti-Milka Militia are probably also tea-baggers as well (I mean the morons who Faux News whipped into an anti-Obama frenzy on Tax Day, not the Other kind). Most drivers start when they're young as 9 or 10. Even the Driving Gidget started off young in the karting ranks before coming up to becoming Mrs. 100 lbs. of Trouble. 

Milka, on the other hand, didn't get her start until she was 24, about a decade or so ago. So while the majority of her racing peers were getting their time in the seat, Milka was working on her Master's degrees in Naval Architecture, Maritime Business and Marine Biology. She also has a Master's in Organizational Development, so that's a hell of an accomplishment for ANYONE, let alone a woman like Milka, good looks and brains are always a rare combination. Hell, Personally, I'd kill to get my Master's in anything, or even just finish my Bachelor's in History. But that's a long story for another time.

I would, of course, like to state in the interest of full disclosure, that I know Milka personally. I met her in 2003, when she was participating in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, which is a tradition at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Over the next few years, we crossed paths as she drove in the Rolex Grand-Am Series, and eventually made it to the IRL. I've always found her not only engaging and a great subject to interview, but she knows her racing. She's competed with the best of the best at the 24 Hours of Daytona, and reached the podium as part of the second place team in the 2007 race.  I personally love interviewing her when I get the chance and she likes seeing another "amigo" as part of the media horde.  

Milka gets a hug from her crew chief before the start of the 

2007 Indy 500. (Photo credit: Matt Detrich, Indianapolis Star)

In the last two runnings of the Indy 500, Milka ran respectively, although she finshed only 65 laps in her 2007 debut, she was the only one amongst herself, Sarah and Mini-D to finish that race,  even though all three of them were involved in accidents, but Milka was the only one to get back out onto the track. This season, she'll run in all the oval races except for the short tracks at Milwaukee, Iowa and Richmond, which frankly is pretty smart. Short track ovals are not her best facet of her racing acumen. However, I want to see her at Long Beach. She knows the circuit, she can do really good there. 

Bottom line, Milka has the ability and the experience to do good in the IRL. I have to really question the real reason behind the vitriol and anger towards her. Would these same people be as angry towards Sarah Fisher if it was her in this position, which she has before? Didn't we hear this exact same argument about the driving Gidget when she started? Of course we did, so why does this bug me so much? Is it because unlike Sarah and Angry-ca, Milka isn't "like everyone else?" Is it because she wasn't born in the US, because she's from Venezuela, which means she gets painted with the same brush as Hugo Chavez?

I think it is a combination of jealousy, at least as far as Ashley is concerned, ignorance, with regard to Van Duh Dussen, and maybe a little bit of good ol' fashioned American Bigotry, for the rest of the AMM out there. So get over her, already. She's going to keep racing, and she'll get better the more laps she has. In fact, I've got a bet to put out there, assuming both Ashley and Duh-nica have the "stones" to put up or shut up. 

Right now there's a bet going on between Tony Kanaan and Ashley's man, that if Tony wins a race before Dario, he takes a hair clipper to Dario's locks, while Tony has to grow out his hair until at least after Indy, since Dario won at Long Beach earlier this month. So along those lines, I propose the following. If Milka finishes ahead of Dario, Ashley gets the "G.I. Jane." The same goes for Danica if she finishes ahead of her. Why not make this something worthy, like the hair gets donated to "Locks of Love" so that they can be made into wigs for little kids going through cancer treatment. 

Any takers?

Milka at Indy before the 2007 race. (Photo credit: Hardmob Forum)