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A17 facebook.com/ yourwestvalley GUEST COMMENTARY Danica Patrick excels at acceleration “The following exposes the phoniness, contrived anger and made-up outrage of President Obama: • May 15, talking about the IRS scandal on the tea party: It is inexcusable and the Americans have a right to be angry, I am angry. • The Obamacare rollout: Nobody is madder than me that the website wasn’t working. • The fast and furious: It is very upsetting to me that someone used such bad judgment to allow something like this to happen. • The Secret Service scandal when the men were drunk: It turns out that if some of the allegations that have been made are conirmed, then, of course I will be angry. • The Gulf Oil spill: I am furious of the entire situation. I would love to spend a lot of time venting and yelling at people. • The IRS: We are going to hold the responsible party accountable. • May 21 regarding the VA: I will not stand for it, not as commander-inchief, it is dishonorable; it is disgraceful. I will not tolerate it, period. This is the latest socalled outrage about the VA issue and now the Democrats are asking for the president to show more anger, resolve and responsibility.” W ho are the best drivers? Men or women? The question remains unanswered; the debate continues. Regardless of the gender, a driver must be a responsible person who gives total concentration to the activity. Race car driving requires absolute concentration plus nerves of steel. points standing in the 2009 season was the highest inish by an American driver at that time. On Aug. 25, 2010, Patrick and her sponsor, GoDaddy, announced that she was leaving the Indy car series to compete full time in the NASDanica Patrick happens to River Raceway in Brodhead, CAR Network Series in 2012 be a woman who has excelled Wis. At age 16, she moved to with teammates Dale Earin race car racing. She is con- Milton Keynes, England, to hart and Cole Whitt. Patrick sidered to be the most sucadvance her racing career in won the pole for the DRIVEcessful, professional female British national series events. 4COPD race car driver in history. She During a three-year period, 300 (Daytona) in Februis a ground breaker with the she raced in Formula Ford, ary, only the second woman speed of 196 Formula Faux- to do so in NASCAR history. mph, achievchall and Brit- She closed out her full-time ing the highest ain’s Formula season with one pole, (an adlevel of perFord Festival, vantageous, starting posiformance in achieving the tion on the inside of the front the NASCAR highest inish row) four top 10’s and the 10th Sprint Cup by an Amerplace in total points position. Series. Patrick ican in the During her NASCAR rachas become event. ing career, Patrick ran 61 raca role model for other young Patrick’s Indycar Series es over ive years. Her NASwomen. career spanned seven years CAR/ARCA career started Patrick was born March with 115 races. Her irst race on Feb. 13, 2010, at Daytona. 25, 1982, in Beloit, Wis., the was Toyota Indy 300 (Home- Her irst race ended when daughter of Beverly Ann (nee stead) in 2005. Her irst win she was caught up in a 12-car Flaten), a snowmobile mewas Indy Japan 300 (Moteaccident. Her second race chanic, and Terry Jose Patga) in 2008, and her best in- was on Feb. 20, 2010, in the rick, Jr., a racer of snowmoish was in 2009. Patrick beStater Brothers 300 at the biles, motorcross and midget came the irst female driver Auto Club Speedway in Foncars. Danica began go-karting to lead the race at the Indiatana, Calif., inishing 31st place at the age of 10 at the Sugar napolis 500. Her ifth overall in the JR Motorsports Chev- rolet. In her third Nationwide race, she crashed into Michael McDowell inishing 36th place. On March 5, 2011, Patrick made history inishing fourth in the Sam’s Town 300 Nationwide Series race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. On July 7, 2011, she inished 10th in the Subway Jalapeno Nationwide 250 Series race at Daytona after leading a total of 13 laps during the race before being involved in an incident coming to the colored lag on the last lap. Patrick’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series covered a span of three years with 54 races. The irst race in this series was the Daytona 500 in 2012. In 2013 at 27th position, she had her best inish. Patrick’s last race in the Sprint Cup Series was in 2014 in the Bojangles’ Southern 500 (Darlington). She had zero wins, one top 10 and one pole. Patrick’s awards are impressive: 2005 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year, 2005 IndyCar Series season Rookie of the Year, IZOD Indy Car Series Most Popular Driver 2005-2010, nd 2012 NASCAR Danica Patrick prepares before practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup series Coca-Cola 600 auto race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., May 22. [The Associated Press] Nationwide Series Most Popular Driver. Danica Patrick is to be admired for her courage and for her determination to achieve her racing goals. • Women’s Watch is a cooperative writing effort of the local chapters of the American Association of University Women, the League of Women Voters and the National Organization for Women. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR CHANGES Solving the VA’s problems I have been an advocate to make major changes in the Veterans Administration for a long time. Finally, the VA has brought public attention to itself and its disgraceful treatment of veterans. I hope this will bring about the major changes necessary to get the VA back on track where it can accomplish its mission of actually treating and helping veterans. Several suggestions have been forwarded as to how this should be done. Issuing IDs to veterans so they can go to non-VA treatment facilities to get treatment is an excellent start. Building more VA facilities, whether clinics or hospitals, is another good one, especially in areas where veterans have to travel several hundred miles for treatment. Funds for building these facilities and the medical personnel to staff them must be appropriated. The Secretary of the VA must have the authority to ire any VA employee for substandard performance on their job. To do this effectively, it would be necessary to end unions in VA facilities. And inally, real veterans should be the only ones hired to work at the VA. Bureaucrats have a stranglehold on VA operations and should be done away with whenever possible until they are all gone. If you are an employee of the VA and you do your job in an honest and satisfactory manner, you should have nothing to worry about. Thank you for helping our veterans. Barry Nordell SuN CITY WEST