Danica Patrick: ‘’There is no reason why I can’t win this race.’’
May 24, 2008
Ron McQueeney/IMS
Life is a blur for the trailblazing driver more than a month after Danica made history as the first woman to win an IndyCar race.
She will start fifth, and it is no mystery why Patrick believes this might be her race. She has momentum, a top-tier team in Andretti Green Racing and a record of strong performances on the 2.5-mile oval. Her fourth-place finish in 2005 is the highest by a woman in Indy 500 history.
‘’The things I imagine are Victory Lane and drinking milk and the whole extravaganza right afterward,’’ Patrick said. ``What happens after that is different for everyone and there’s no way to tell how big it will be.’
Patrick has been strong here all month, but insisted winning a race did not release pressure or change her.
‘’It was something I had always wanted to do,’’ she said of winning and she emerged from her No. 7 Honda crying in Motegi, the buildup to that moment overwhelming.
‘’It wasn’t because of the win,’’ Patrick said. ‘It was because of how many times I have had to answer to [reporters], `When am I going to win? Do you feel like it is going to happen? Blah, blah, blah.’ That is where the real, real emotion came from. I wasn’t surprised to win. I mean, I expect to.’’
She seems unburdened by the spectacle, talking about the prospect of winning the Indy 500 and her place in the sport.
‘’This opportunity will be gone,’’ Patrick said. ``I won’t be popular one day and nobody will want to talk to me, so you have to take these opportunities.’’
Patrick’s greatest triumph at Indianapolis Motor Speedway also happens to be her biggest disappointment at the world’s most famous racetrack.
Her career-high fifth-place points ranking propelled by a victory last month at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan is one of many signs 2008 might be the year Patrick was ment to conquer Indy.
“That’s my best and worst memory of Indy,” she says. “You just don’t get that many opportunities. I was definitely disappointed afterward and probably more disappointed now. If I’d go back (in time), I’d rather run out of gas in the lead on the last lap then fall back. But everything happens for a reason.”
Patrick says she benefits from extra preparation. Teams spend nearly a month at Indy readying cars for the season’s premier event.
“I’m very diligent about getting a car underneath me that I can do anything I want with,” she says.
Imagine how it will be if Patrick wins Sunday’s 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500.
A lot of people are doing just that this weekend — imagining how the sport would be affected by a Patrick victory in the biggest open-wheel race in the world.
Patrick has been helping the IndyCar series ever since she arrived on the scene in 2005.
When it was announced that she would drive an IndyCar for the team owned by Bobby Rahal and David Letterman that year, the buzz was immediate. Patrick would not be the first woman to drive in the series, but there was something different about her.
Patrick had a strong background of open-wheel racing and had done well competing in the ultratough European Formula series that are the traditional path to Formula One.
And, Patrick was more glamorous, more photogenic than the women who had preceded her to IndyCar. Her appeal was more broad-based. She appealed to kids and she appealed to their parents especially males.
On a strong team, Patrick was good on the track right away. She won three poles her first year and led the Indy 500 with 11 laps to go. She wound up fourth, but Danica-mania had kicked up to a higher gear.
This month at Indy, she has been fast in practice and was fifth fastest in qualifying. She will start Sunday’s Indy 500 from the middle of the second row. Combined with the fact that she has not finished worse than eighth at Indy, some are predicting she will become the first woman to win the prestigious race.
