Before Danica, females weren't widely accepted (cont'd)

"I was thinking if I'm not going to do this 100 percent then I don't want to do it at all," she said. "If I did get hurt doing something that didn't mean anything to me and cost me time away from my kids then what's the point?"

She was hired to appear as a driver in car commercials and even did stunt work in the movie Bad Boys II, but her greatest joy is now coaching her 13-year-old racing daughter, Kate.

“

I was thinking if I'm not going to do this 100 percent then I don't want to do it at all.

”

-- ROBIN McCALL DALLENBACH

"I'm trying to teach her to be mentally tough," she said. "I tell her if she puts her nose in there she's not backing out. That's my spot on the race track and I own it at this time and if you're going to take it away from me we are going to have a problem."

McCall Dallenbach learned to be tough racing short tracks in the South and when she finally made it to the Cup level drivers such as Darrell Waltrip and Davey Alison knew she was a racer and a tough one at that. Racing with a female on the track wasn't an issue for them.

"But in the end I followed the path that life gave me and went through the doors that opened," she said.

Robinson is another story of lost sponsorship and less-than-ideal opportunities. But what she proved is that you can have a family and be a racer at the same time. In the middle of her career she had two children and came back in 1999 to post some of her most successful finishes.

"It was 1994, I didn't have a ride, I had just gotten married and Mark Reno called to see if I wanted to drive James Finch's ARCA car but I knew I might be pregnant. I went and took three more pregnancy tests and called him back. He said being pregnant was the first excuse he had ever gotten from a driver," Robinson said.

She can laugh about it now because in 1999 she drove the Daytona ARCA race for Finch and finished second, and made her first Cup start in 2001 and continued on a part-time basis until 2005.

"I regret not sticking it out that last year, but this year in Daytona I received the best compliment from Dick Berggren. He told me I should go down to Danica's trailer and that she needs to thank me for paving the road. So I feel like I paved the way somewhat. People who knew me and raced with me, they knew what I could do and I gained some respect."

Each female driver that enters the sport brings something unique and leaves behind a notable impression that hopefully brings NASCAR closer to the day when the Cup Series boasts a full-time competitive female star.

And I hope it is Patrick, but to the women in the thick of their battles -- Ali Owens, Chrissy Wallace and Jennifer Jo Cobb -- keep digging.

Just remember, you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

Related:
• Robinson celebrates women in racing, new career