There's room for women drivers in this kingdom

To be honest, I wasn't all that surprised last week when Richard Petty said women didn't belong in NASCAR.

Petty has the right to say whatever he wants. He's been extremely successful in this sport with seven championships. If that's what he thinks, that's what he thinks. It really doesn't bother me. A lot of people have that old-school mentality.

Maybe he is right in that it's not a sport for every woman. You have to live your life in a man's world. You're around guys in a garage every day. It's just a different lifestyle. I don't think it is for every woman.

	Erin Crocker drives the No. 98 Dodge in the Truck Series. Credit: Autostock
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But it's wrong for him to say it's not for any woman. Hopefully, Danica Patrick and I will prove that.

I used to take more offense to comments like that. You sort of get used to it. Not that there's that many people with those ideas.

In the Nextel Cup garage and Busch garage and the race world in general, there is more positive, mutual respect than there are people against me. And people that are important to me, like Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, people that I look up to as drivers, they're totally behind me.

The comments from Richard Petty ... they're just from a different time. Society was a lot different 30 or 40 years ago when he was in his prime.

It's kind of funny. We both work with General Mills as a sponsor and people have commented about how Richard has been very supportive of me.

Last year, when we threw ourselves into the Busch Series Richard said something to the people at General Mills like, "That girl has talent. Don't push her too fast. She'll get it.''

He was right. I was pushed too fast. But he did say I had talent and I would get there.

The fact that he said what he did last week makes me wonder a little bit why he made the comments. Maybe he meant women in general don't belong in racing, which as I said I kind of agree with. Racing isn't for every woman.

If that's what he's saying, I understand it.

But what he said certainly has gotten a lot of attention. I did an interview the day after the comments came out and said, "Hey, if that's what Richard believes, then tell him to dig his helmet off the shelf and dust it off and we'll go for a match race.''

Just don't ask me to race go-karts against my PR person, Toni McCray. We were at an appearance for General Mills at Victory Lane Karting in Charlotte last week. Toni worked at that track for a year and a half, and she took advantage of that.

She took me out pretty good for the win. We were coming toward the finish line and she just sort of pushed me over toward the fence. The fence wasn't exactly straight. It had this little part that stuck out.

Of course, my left front stuck right into that part of the fence and stopped my car.

That was humbling, being beaten by her. I was, "Great. Now the people from General Mills will think they've got the wrong driver.''

The Truck race last week at Mansfield [Ohio] was a typical short track race. We ran fairly well there in practice. Then qualifying got rained out, so we had to go back to owner points and I had to start 25th.

It's a hard track to pass on. It's a one-groove track and we had a really hard tire. Track position was really important.

We got up to third at one point and then got taken out. I can't say I was innocent. I moved a few people myself during the race. It was just one of those short track racing deals and we finished 28th.

It wasn't as hot as it was at the Cup race at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Sunday, but it was humid. For some reason, the trucks seem hotter than the cars.

When I stopped the truck after the race I couldn't touch anything in there without burning my hand. There is too much heat getting in there. We've got to work on that.

We're going to have a lot of hot races this summer. I work out a lot to get ready for them.

It was good to get away from all that on Monday for Memorial Day. I just hung around the pool and chilled out, did a little canoeing on the lake.

There's not too many days you get to do that. This is our busiest time of the year for me. Last week started 10 straight weeks of racing, with some of those doubles in ARCA and Truck or Busch and Truck or whatever the combination is.

Erin Crocker is stepping up a program that she hopes will land her in a fulltime Nextel Cup ride by driving in the Busch, Truck and ARCA Series for Evernham Motorsports. The youngest of five children, Crocker has been sharing weekly with NASCAR.com readers the ups and downs of her life on and off the track through staff writer David Newton.