DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Leilani Munter once worked as a photo double for the actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, but that is not the celebrity she most often passes for now. Munter has been approached by fans here who ask if they can pose with her for a photograph and afterward gush, “Thanks so much, Danica!”
If Munter had a dollar for every time she has been mistaken for Danica Patrick, the open-wheel racer who will make her stock-car debut here Saturday in an ARCA Series race, she would be one of the better-funded drivers on the stock-car circuit. As it is, money is a constant worry.
A lack of funding rather than a lack of skill prevented Munter, 33, from making her ARCA debut before this year. “I’ve actually tested here several times,” Munter said. “I never had the funding, the sponsorship, to go.”
The field of 43 for Saturday’s Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200, a lower-tier stock-car event, will include a record six women. They include Munter, who finished fourth in a stock-car event at Texas Motor Speedway in 2006; Alli Owens, who earned the outside pole at the ARCA event here last year and finished 40th; Jennifer Jo Cobb, an ARCA regular; Jill George; and Milka Duno, a Venezuelan who was inducted last month into the Latin American International Sports Hall of Fame in Laredo, Tex.
Everyone is hoping to draft off the attention generated by Patrick, 27, the first woman to win an IndyCar race, who is easing into Nascar. Her appearance here has spiked interest in a race that normally draws notice only for its crashes. In the past five years, 80 cars have been involved in accidents in the 80-lap event.
After earning the pole Friday, James Buescher, the defending champion, said: “Yeah, it’s going to be one of the most-watched races ARCA’s ever had. That’s good for everybody in the field to take advantage of.”
Patrick qualified in 12th place for the race, the leading driver among the women. She said that aside from Munter, a friend to whom she loaned a HANS safety device this week, “I don’t really know the rest of the girls out there.” She added: “I’m sure at some point I will meet them. If not, it’s a matter of circumstance.”
In fact, Patrick and Duno crossed paths during a practice for an IndyCar race in Ohio in 2008. They had an angry exchange prompted by Patrick’s contention that she was repeatedly blocked by Duno, who responded by twice throwing a towel at her.
On Friday, Duno sat serenely in the back of her trailer, which was parked next to Patrick’s, and said it was “a coincidence” that she decided to venture into stock-car racing a few days after Patrick did.
“It just happened at the same time,” Duno said with a shrug.
“Every year I had an offer for the Busch Series,” she added, referring to the Nascar minor-league circuit now known as the Nationwide Series. “So this is not something new.”
When Duno was asked how she would describe her relationship with Patrick, she demurred.
“Can I pass to the next question?” Duno said. “That is my answer.”
Doug Stringer of Stringer Motorsports, who owns the Toyota that Duno is racing, used to sponsor another woman, Gabi DiCarlo. “There are some female drivers out there,” Stringer said, “who have more ability than 80 percent of the male field.”
As Stringer was talking, Owens walked up. “Like this one right here,” he said.
Owens, 21, grew up in South Daytona Beach. Her parents own a commercial cleaning business and could not support her driving dream. So, when she was 13, Owens put together a publicity kit, hopped on her bicycle and solicited donations from all the companies she could visit and still make her 8 p.m. curfew.
By the time she was 15, Owens had raised $10,000, she said, “which paid for tires and gas.”
At the dirt tracks where Owens gained racing experience, it didn’t matter that drivers like Sara Christian, Louise Smith and Ethel Mobley had driven in Nascar races as far back as the 1940s and 1950s. Owens experienced the isolation reserved for trailblazers.
“It was so much harder than anything ARCA or Nascar can throw at me,” she said. She added: “You almost have to play the guy role for a little bit, get respect and then switch and play the girl role. That’s exactly what I did.”
On the track, Owens said, she never worries about running out of gas, only money. She envies Patrick for being able to drive a Chevrolet co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“To do this right,” Owens said, “you need to have the best equipment, and Danica obviously has that.”
She added: “There’s a lot of women who have tried Nascar but not one that has succeeded, and a lot of it has had to do with their equipment. I hope Danica really has an appreciation of what she’s representing. There are so many females who would like to be in her position.”
