Melee Averted as Patrick and Newman Appear on Letterman

Attention brain surgeons: This and everything on this blog is completely made up. Fiction. Just for laughs. Sheesh.

Sources report Indy Racing League legendary superstar Danica Patrick and acting giant Paul Newman nearly came to blows backstage during a taping of Late Night with David Letterman Monday.

"Newman was talking about his drivers, Sebastien (Bourdais) and Bruno (Junqueira) back stage, talking about how they had a shot to win the Indy 500 this year, and Danica comes up and is all like, 'You want to go?' " said one witness to the scene. "She's all like, 'You want to go, Cool Hand Luke?' Maybe it was stress."

Fortunately yellow-shirted security forces intervened and diffused the conflict when no one could produce a "fight pass."

Fans, who have downloaded an estimated 2.4 million pictures of the 23-year-old, 5' 2", 100-pound dynamo, said the incident was another hopeful sign that Danica has the "fire" to become the first female winner of the storied Indy 500.

"Did you see the way she was all up in Newman's grill?" said one poster to a popular Indy Racing League message board. "I'm telling you, the girl has the fire!"

Newman, who just turned 80, is part owner of a team that put reigning ChampCar champion Bourdais and teammate Junqueira in the field. Bourdais will start 15th and Junqueira will start 12th.

When the taping started, Letterman -- who is part owner of Patrick's Rahal-Letterman Racing team -- gave Patrick an estimated 23-minute introduction, praising her for her extensive brain surgery skills. The taping was interrupted several times as photographers broke through the security phalanx and snapped shots of Patrick.

Each time order was restored when yellow-shirted security forces removed photographers who didn't have a "interrupt Late Night taping" pass.

For his part, Newman seemed unphased by the confrontation or the taping. "All I'm saying is I could drive a Rahal car 224 mph, and I'm 80 for christsakes. I've asked Bruno and Sebastien to save a little milk for me," Newman is quoted as saying. "I won't be there, because Tony George is pure evil and perhaps part of Al Qaeda, but I'll drink it later. Maybe warmed up before bed time."

In other news, MTV Tuesday announced they were very close to signing Patrick to guest host the popular "Punk'd," but "only if the Andretti Green team is first on the list." Also, the LA Times made headlines by writing the first story in 2005 about Patrick that did not mention Sarah Fisher.

© 2005 Bill Zahren