Ever since Milka Duno entered the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2007, the Venezuelan has seen her name in the headlines for the right and what some say the wrong reasons. While I have not agreed with a lot of her negative publicity, Duno is gaining speed on and even off the track in her first full season of IndyCar Series competition behind the wheel of the No. 18 CITGO Dallara Honda for Dale Coyne Racing (DCR).
Duno is a former model and undoubtedly attracted much attention. Her racing career has been deemed somewhat unusual because of her late start. However, she wasn’t going to let that statistic keep her from reaching her dream.
She was introduced to the sport when she was invited to a driving clinic by a car club in Venezuela and did not start racing until she was 24. Prior to racing her background was primarily academic. Duno holds master’s degrees in Organizational Development, Naval Architecture, Maritime Business, and Marine Biology and she has prior experience working as a naval engineer.
Running a limited IndyCar schedule since 2007, Dale Coyne Racing and Duno announced in March that the one of the most popular drivers on the tour would compete full-time on the tour in 2010 with extreme concentration surrounding the road and street course events. Duno joined the two-car DCR operation as a teammate to Alex Lloyd in the No. 19 Boy Scouts of America Dallara Honda.
The move to the improving Dale Coyne Racing was an opportunity for Duno who had in the past competed for two part-time seasons with Dreyer & Reinbold. She had also participated in a test entering the 2009 season driving an entry for Newman / Haas / Lanigan Racing – which led speculation that she was potentially moving ship but after much thought and weighing options, she returned to her familiar No. 23 CITGO entry for Dreyer & Reinbold at Kansas Speedway where she qualified a solid 12th before finishing 16th.
There wasn’t a thought that Duno’s advance to a full-time schedule wouldn’t be filled with some bumps and bruises. Seven races into the year though; Duno has ultimately paid those dues tenfold. The first four races of the season were on street courses which over the years has proven to be an obstacle for the improving driver.
She did however qualify for those races and gained valuable seat time that she would not have had if not for the DCR / CITGO racing team. While unable to make it to the checkered flag in three of the first four races, she did however keep her nose clean and finished the race on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama where she placed 24th.
The first oval race of the year took the teams out west in the United States to Kansas Speedway, where Duno made her first career IndyCar start in 2007. While she qualified near the tail of the field, she patiently moved her way through the running order and was in the hunt for a season-best and notable finish before debris from another competitor’s incident sidelined the No. 18 team 84 laps into the 200-lap event.
The team had every reason to smile based on her performance at Kansas Speedway even though the finish wasn’t justified. Feeling that their bad luck was now behind them – the team headed to Indianapolis Motor Speedway planning to award Duno with another prestigious start in one of the greatest spectacles of racing, the Indianapolis 500.
After showing early strength at the beginning of the month, Duno would be one of the handful of drivers who eventually would be bumped from the 33-car starting field and forced to sit on the sidelines for the Memorial-weekend tradition. Duno wasn’t on the sidelines alone as Paul Tracy, considered one of the favorites entering the 2010 Indy 500 was also unable to earn a starting berth into the contest.
Sometimes though, hitting the very bottom raises you to the top and more than likely for Duno, missing the Indianapolis 500 was one of the lowest points of her racing career. No time to fret though as the series would press on a week later at Texas Motor Speedway, another favorable track for the former Panoz GT Series champion.
Duno rejuvenated herself and her DCR organization by posting a solid sixth during the first practice session at Texas Motor Speedway two weeks ago. The effort raised eyebrows among the garage area with many doing a double-take at timing and scoring to make sure what they were seeing wasn’t a dream.
True. It wasn’t a dream. It was for real. Duno’s speed was impressive and the fastest of four female competitors, including rival Danica Patrick entered for the Firestone 550K. For her fans and supporters, the lap proved that there is light at the end of the tunnel for the Caracas, Venezuela native and I personally see her season only getting stronger. By the way, Patrick was the next fastest female in the session nestled back in the 15th position, nine positions behind Duno.
Unfortunately, for Duno who has 33 career IZOD IndyCar Series starts to her resume her engine in the CITGO machine began to falter which ultimately hindered the 38-year old in qualifying and eventually led to a mechanical failure in the event. While she was credited with a disappointing 23rd place finish, her efforts gained her attention for showing that she has the talent, ability and confidence to run with the best in the potent Indy Racing League (IRL).
After two weeks off, the series resumes action from Iowa Speedway this weekend for the running of the Iowa Corn Indy 250 Presented by Pioneer®. Obviously for Duno, her goal is to prove that Texas’s practice performance was no fluke.
Located in Newton, Iowa, Duno will make her third start the .875-mile short track and hopes to improve on her best qualifying effort of 19th and finishing position of 18th occurring in 2007. No doubt that the recent success of teammate Lloyd is a confidence booster for Duno’s Darren Crouser led race team and I would be ultimately disappointed if Duno didn’t find herself contending for a top-10 run on Sunday.
Before steering all of her concentration towards the IZOD IndyCar Series earlier this season, Duno joined Patrick for a taste of stock car racing via the ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards. In December 2009, Duno left a three-day test at the breathtaking 2.5-mile superspeedway of Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway leading a record nine female drivers participating in the open-test in preparation for the Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 at Daytona, the 2010 ARCA season-opener.
While much of the attention was centralized on Patrick, many of the media agreed it was hard to overlook the success of Duno’s first try in a stock car fielded in a joint effort between Braun Racing and Stringer Motorsports and not surprisingly would later be considered a potential sleeper for the 43-car starting field in February.
Sadly, her first taste of Daytona speedweeks did not go as planned. Armed with the same No. 90 CANTV Toyota Camry she tested with, the performance from two months earlier never came back to life. Duno struggled to gain the horsepower she needed in order to be a threat at Daytona but still managed to find herself in the starting grid. After starting 41st, she quickly learned the feel for the draft and had maneuvered into the 32nd position before being swept into an accident not of her own making on lap six which suffered in a heart-breaking 43rd place finish.
Word from the ARCA garage is Duno is wanted back (badly in fact) and is currently approved for all tracks on the circuit but no official confirmation from her party has been announced. Personally, I also would like to see her back in the series. She without a doubt helped the ratings spike to record levels but sadly didn’t share the same success that Patrick did. Had Duno not been shoved into the multi-car incident, I strongly believed she would have been contending for a top-15 and potentially even a top-10 run in her ARCA debut.
Chicagoland Speedway will be a joint venue for the two series later this year and I feel that seat time for her in a stock-car could gain her some additional momentum to feel more comfortable about racing in ARCA and / or NASCAR rather than the bitter-sweet taste she experienced at Daytona. Time will tell though whether Milka Duno will take another stab at stock car racing.
The first woman Ferrari Challenge winner also makes noise off the track with her commendable “Milka Way” program. The program’s initiative is to inspire Hispanic / American youth to “Aim for the Stars” and achieve academic excellence with a heavy concentration on science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields of study.
Her willingness to give back to the students has earned her several awards, honorable mentions, invitations to esteemed events, programs and functions while in a sense building a superstar status that has seemed virtually bulletproof. Not to forget, her bilingual kids book, “Go, Milka, Go!” has become a smashing success. The book depicts her as a cartoon character teaching the importance of education to children of all ages.
Oh and if you think she hasn’t done it all, in 2008, she completed filming her first major motion picture role. Duno played the role of Kellie “Gearbox,” a race car driver, in the highly anticipated Speed Racer movie that is based on the 1960’s classic animated series. The Warner Bros. movie was released in May 2008.
Love her or hate her, Milka Duno (as long as she can continue to trigger the strong sponsorship she has acquired) is going to be around for many more years to come. Some say she is a threat and sometimes quoted as a “rolling chicane” on the track.
I say bologna.
Every driver has had rough spots in their career and Duno is no exception. Duno has showed improvements in every season she has competed in and I don’t expect this year, despite her hardships to be any different. By the way, there is another driver (and no I won’t name that pilot) who comes to my mind that I would fight to the end to see their IndyCar license revoked before hers but as long as Duno continues to show the drive and passion she has in her three years of open-wheel racing; nothing will stand in her way. Nothing!
If you don’t think becoming the highest-finishing female in the history of the 24 Hours of Daytona in the Rolex Sports Car Series with a second place finish alongside teammates Ryan Dalziel, Darren Manning and Patrick Carpentier in 2007 isn’t a boost for your resume – than you might want to just rethink the garage.
For more on Milka Duno and her Milka Way program, please visit MilkaDuno.com.