On the eve of the fourth race of her stock car experimental tour, Danica Patrick would do well to study the path of another open wheel explorer -- though it's quite likely she's already picked his brain.

He says they're friends, after all.

“

Expectations are a tough thing. I think when I went NASCAR racing the expectations might have gone too far.

”

-- DARIO FRANCHITTI

And since unfounded expectations can lay low the strongest man or even the strongest team -- even a strong woman need beware. And if that team is weaker than expected, look out -- the crash landing of those expectations would rival the Hindenburg disaster.

But thank God life goes on.

Just ask Dario Franchitti, Patrick's former IRL teammate, whose championship race car driving legacy was secured with the 2009 IndyCar title -- or his car owner, multiple champion Chip Ganassi.

The Chip Ganassi Racing pair, with their brutally interrupted 2008 expedition into NASCAR cut short by lack of finance, lack of results and an injury Franchitti suffered in a savage, yet typical superspeedway stock car crash, could advise Patrick on the equivalent brutality of those expectations.

Before discussing Patrick, Ganassi didn't miss the chance to praise his latest champion, Franchitti.

"Let me tell you something, that guy can drive a race car -- he can drive any race car," Ganassi said. "When we tried to do that NASCAR experiment, we thought our cars were a little better than they were and we thought our team was a little better than it was. And the problem was our program was a program that really couldn't afford any hiccups, whatsoever -- it was being run that tight.

"The fact of the matter is we had difficulty getting some sponsorship we otherwise thought we'd have -- he had a crash in which he broke his ankle, which was no fault of his own. But he shows up at a place like Bristol and he led over 100 laps in the [Nationwide] race.

"I look back at that whole thing fondly. Sure, it didn't turn out like we wanted it to, but I'll tell you what -- it made us all grow a lot. It was good for our team and it was good for him. Did it turn out like we wanted it to? No. But it was a learning experience that in the end everything worked out." (Continued)