I'll add on to this with a little bit of my two cents thrown in as well. Most of the same stuff also applies to Paul Menard and JWT, and most us thread regulars including yourself and I know how much we tend to rip (and most of the time, rightly so) JWT. Once they both became more competitive (or in JWT's case, "Competitive"), the stigma for Menard in particular began to wear off.
JWT still has it because while both he and Menard have won races and became more consistent over the years, he still is notorious for destroying race vehicles like wildfire. If Danica improved and shown better results and especially didn't wreck cars often, she wouldn't get the flak that she gets now. I don't mean minor improvements- she's in a full tilt Hendrick car, and with that type of piece, she deservedly does have lofty expectations to live up to. Even Kasey Khane gets flak from a lot of people (but from what I've seen on GTP, not so much here) for his performance in a Hendrick car, and he has been doing better than her. One can only imagine the hell that would be rained upon Dale Jr. if he drove like Danica. He's already a firestorm as is with his name. Now granted, her being in that car also probably brought Tony and Gene enough money to fund Kurt's car out of pocket (or more specifically, out of Gene's pocket), but his performances have backed up the expenditure. If anyone other than Danica was in that seat, I would be inclined to believe that they would have been released by now with how she has performed.
