As usual, all eyes on Danica at Daytona

So far, it's been a wild week for Danica Patrick in Daytona.

Driving her familiar green GoDaddy.com Chevy, there have been glimpses of the savvy racing that made her an IndyCar star amid the reality that there is a steep learning curve in the transition from open-wheel cars to stock cars.

When Patrick took the pole for Saturday's Nationwide season opener, she became the first female driver to sit on the pole in a NASCAR race in 18 years. Yet she wrecked twice this week, a victim of the pack racing for which Daytona is famous. Patrick wrecked on the 49th lap Saturday and finished 38th of 43 starters. "Obviously, we've got the Daytona 500 [today], my first time. And I can't dwell on [the wreck]," Patrick said. "I need to buckle down and focus."

Patrick makes her Sprint Cup debut in Sunday's Daytona 500. Opinions on her will forever be divided. There will be those who cling to the belief that women should not race cars. There are those who applaud her simply because she races cars. Some pay attention only to her photos in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue; some root for her on race day because they saw the swimsuit photos.

"I'll be quite honest, I was very skeptical whenever she came over, could she handle these cars, get in and mix it up?" said Dale Jarrett, a three-time Daytona 500 winner who now calls races for ESPN. "I'm a fan. I think she can do it. I think she's a polarizing figure, and she's embraced the idea that she is the face of the Nationwide Series and somewhat the Sprint Cup Series now."

It's not a bad face to have leading your organization. According to ESPN, when Patrick made her Nationwide debut in 2010, it was -- and still is -- the most-viewed Nationwide Series race ever on cable television. And Patrick is already in the top 10 among drivers in merchandise sales at the NASCAR.com Superstore.

"People have said that she doesn't deserve to do this," said NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Darrell Waltrip, part of Fox's Daytona 500 broadcast team. "If she can overcome a lot of that, that will be a big accomplishment. She'll do the on-track stuff better than most people expect. If she does, that'll put some of those skeptics to rest. That would be a huge success."

The Daytona 500 -- considered NASCAR's Super Bowl -- is the most prestigious race on the circuit and officially kicks off the season. It makes for a heady debut.

"I'm really excited and I'm really happy," Patrick said during NASCAR's media day. "I mean, yeah, there's nerves. There's a lot of things that are unknown . . . but overall, I'm feeling comfortable, as comfortable as I could imagine myself in this situation."

Daytona is one of two tracks on the schedule in which the cars are fitted with restrictor plates. The plates slow the cars down and keep them at a similar rate of speed. That lends itself to pack racing, which means through much of the 500 miles, cars will race two wide and sometimes three wide. That kind of driving is akin to traveling in excess of 100 mph on the LIE during rush hour.

"You can't make any mistakes and win this race," Jarrett said. "It's just so incredibly tough to go put 500 miles together and make it happen."

In such an atmosphere, drivers must trust each other.

"Because the racing is so tight, if the leaders are comfortable racing with you, you can race all day long," said NASCAR owner Tommy Baldwin, a native of Bellport. "When she wrecked during the qualifier, that wasn't her fault. She was just racing at the bottom and someone came along and hit her. I think everyone is pretty comfortable with her out there."

The comfort level on the track and in the garage may be a work in progress, but most drivers realize Patrick brings a lot of attention to NASCAR.

"She has what it takes to be a really good driver," said Trevor Bayne, last year's Daytona 500 winner. "Anyone who comes over from open-wheel racing, there is an adjustment period and it takes time. But she brings a lot of fans to our sport and that's exciting. Everyone realizes that."