She’s trying to wear two hats – racing journalist and wife of a racer. Maybe she thought that since she was talking about IndyCar and she covers NASCAR, it was okay… not so much.

However the actual message seems as you stated, unprofessional.

Look, at the beginning of the season I was making the same argument.

But I’d rather a bunch of crew guys on an IndyCar team go looking for work than have a single racer laid up in a hospital because Milka does the equivalent of flailing her hands up by her face and squealing when people try to lap her.

Like I said, the issue isn’t her speed per se – everyone keeps pointing out that she doesn’t qualify last and that she doesn’t finish last. The issue is her overall racecraft. She is driving at a level that is beyond her capability. Sadly, it’s the same problem that Paul Dana had – he was fast and getting faster, but his situational awareness – or lack thereof – eventually resulted in a terrible and tragic story when he died at the wheel.

I am not one to push the panic button but there has to come a point when race control steps in for the good of the competitors, and what happened Sunday should have been all the impetus they needed to do so.

Sometimes the self-evident needs to be expressed because others cannot see the obvious.

…between “acceptable risk” and “needless risk.”

A lack of situational awareness in high-speed racing is a critical shortcoming. You have to be able to trust that the other guy will have at least a basic understanding of what the right move for a certain situation is. Someone lacking situational awareness can, for instance, be unaware of a yellow-flag condition and barrel into a wreck at full speed, which is what happened to Paul Dana. Milka’s lack of situational awareness has caused several incidents – most famously, Graham Rahal’s wreck at Indy last year – and nearly resulted in mayhem at Barber. Just because the other drivers’ skill prevented that mayhem does not mean that the risk of it is acceptable.

Keeping the Boy Scout car running is not enough of a justification to turn a blind eye to the kind of fundamental flaw in technique. In fact, that kind of thinking reeks both of desperation and of misplaced priorities.

If that rumor is true, what good does that do Dale Coyne? I mean, Andy has made a crusade about keeping the Boy Scout car in the series at all costs, which is what I was addressing with my “hyperbole” – if Milka becomes a team owner, what does that do to save the jobs that would be lost at DCR?

Milka is not there to be a Sarah Fisher. She’s there to drive, and her money is giving her the chance to do it. She has no interest in owning a team or else she’d already be wearing that hat. If – and this is a big “if” – she ever learns the necessary fundamental racecraft it takes to race without being a hazard, then mas alla and good for her. She definitely has the intelligence, so whatever is making her more than just a backmarker is instinct, or lack of it. That sort of thing cannot be taught – it either has to be developed or it will never make itself known.

As GroundedEffects says, there have always been backmarkers – but most of them have enough sense to be able to stay out of the way. The ones who haven’t had that sense historically have not lasted long in the series, either because of their own initiative to do something else or because they were forced out. Milka’s rather large insurance policy precludes her team showing her the door and she’s shown no sign of taking that step on her own, so the remaining options are rather limited.

I haven’t done a lot of real-life racing so I’m an easy target for people who like to question my bona fides… but I’ve done enough to know that having a driver on the same track with you that has a lack of situational awareness of this magnitude is more than a simple inconvenience. I don’t care whether it’s done behind closed doors or if race control parks her mid-race – unless Milka has a “come to Jesus” moment and figures out what she’s lacking in basic racecraft, she represents a real hazard.