SONOMA, Calif. - One week after Allison Duncan got her first late-model victory at Stockton 99 Speedway about an hour from here, something broke in her car and she wrecked on the first lap of a 50-lap feature her next time out. That, as they say, is racing. For Duncan, however, the overall trend is upward. Before the June 11 victory, the first late-model feature win for a woman driver where cars have raced since 1947, Duncan had finished second three times to fight her way into contention for the track title. She's now third in the standings at Stockton. "I felt like I was overdue," Duncan, 26, said of the win. "Winning is what it's going to take. I think any female driver who makes it in NASCAR is going to have to win at every level along the way. Nobody makes it to the Nextel Cup level without winning lots of races along the way. Why should a female driver be any different?" Things are different these days, however, for women trying to make it in motorsports. It's the Danica Patrick factor. Patrick and Duncan have a lot more in common than gender. Both are trying to learn their craft, albeit Patrick, who finished fourth in the Indianapolis 500 last month, is doing it in the spotlight's white glare at the top level of her chosen discipline. Stockton 99 Speedway isn't Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but it's a place for Duncan to continue her education. "You've got Nextel Cup drivers who are running Busch races this year just to get seat time," Duncan said. "That shows how important it is. It's huge for me to be in a race car every single weekend, getting that experience in competitive cars." Duncan is from San Rafael, a city fewer than 20 miles from Infineon Raceway. She started racing sports cars at age 17, and by 2000 she became the youngest woman to compete in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. After she graduated with an engineering degree from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, she moved to North Carolina so, she said, she could "race right under the noses" of NASCAR team owners. She spent two years at Hickory Motor Speedway, winning rookie of the year there in 2003. Racing in Northern California this year meant moving back home, but she was also worried that being out of sight could also leave her out of mind. But the Danica-palooza that has followed Patrick's run at Indy means that's not going to happen. "We feel a lot more attention being paid to us, and to our performance as well," Duncan said. "Before it was sort of like, 'Oh, look, it's a female driver.' But it wasn't focused, really, on performance. It's not just that Danica was a female driving in the Indy 500. It was that she had a legitimate shot at being competitive."