Patrick, Danica Sue

▪ 2009

born March 25, 1982, Beloit, Wis.

      On April 19, 2008, in her 50th start in the open-wheel Indy Racing League (IRL), American race car driver Danica Patrick secured the first big win of her career, in the Firestone IndyCar 300 race at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Japan. Patrick, driving a Dallara-Honda for Andretti Green Racing, skillfully avoided taking a late pit stop in the race and finished 5.86 seconds ahead of former IRL titlist Helio Castroneves of Brazil to become the first woman to win an IndyCar championship event. Patrick's victory—and her sixth-place finish in the season-long drivers' championship—silenced many of her critics, but the question still remained in some minds: was she just a marketing phenomenon or a talented harbinger of how professional auto racing would evolve?

      Patrick—a petite 1.57-m (5-ft 2-in), 45-kg (100-lb) brunette—was comely enough to command four pages in the 2008 swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated magazine, host a cable television show, and market a clothing line that included sunglasses and bikinis. Meanwhile, she was a talented-enough race car driver to have collected a plethora of “firsts” for her sex since she began racing go-karts in Beloit, Wis., at the age of 10. At 16, after national success in go-karts, Patrick left high school to race Formula Fords and Vauxhalls in the U.K. In the 2000 Formula Ford festival, she was second, the best-ever finish for an American in that spawning ground for future professionals.

      Patrick returned to the U.S. in 2002 after former Indy driver Bobby Rahal signed her. She was then promoted to Toyota Formula Atlantic open-wheel cars. Although she never won in that series, she finished third in the drivers' overall ranking in 2004. That led to a coveted position with the Rahal Letterman Racing team and a chance to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. Three other women—Janet Guthrie, Lyn St. James, and Sara Fisher—had previously qualified for the most prestigious race in the U.S. In her first appearance at Indy in 2005, Patrick set the fastest lap in practice (229.88 mph [369.956 km/hr]), but she could not duplicate this feat during official qualifying. She became the first woman to lead the classic race (three times for a total of 19 laps) and eventually finished fourth. She was named Rookie of the Year and voted IRL Most Popular Driver.

      Racing fans repeated the latter honour for 2006 and 2007, when Patrick switched allegiance to Andretti Green Racing. After the 2008 IRL season, it was reported that Ferrari had asked her to test for a Formula 1 ride. Whether she changed to F1 or remained exclusively on the IndyCar circuit, it was clear that Patrick's blend of driving skill, athleticism, and sexuality would continue to bring new exposure to auto racing.

Robert J. Fendell

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