Danica Patrick

Race car driver

• Born: March 25, 1982
• Place of Birth: Beloit, Wisconsin

SPORT: Auto racing

Early Life

Danica Sue Patrick was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, on March 25, 1982. Shortly thereafter, her family moved to Roscoe, Illinois, where Patrick grew up in a small-town atmosphere. Her parents, T. J. and Bev, both had strong competitive sports backgrounds and met at a snowmobile race where Bev was acting as a friend’s mechanic. In addition to racing snowmobiles, T. J. raced midget cars and motocross bikes.

The Road to Excellence

Patrick was ten years old when she and her younger sister Brooke first visited a local go-kart track. Go-karts, open-frame vehicles powered by small gasoline engines, are often starting places for race-car drivers’ careers, but Patrick’s introduction to them was inauspicious. Inexperienced in handling the machine, she had difficulty simply keeping up with the parade lap, let alone racing. However, the experience did not discourage her and, if anything, made her determined to learn. By the end of the summer, she was in second place in a field of twenty drivers.

In 1994, Patrick won the World Karting Association’s Grand National Championship and followed her success with additional titles the following two years. By 1997, she was seriously contemplating a professional racing career. Her next logical step was to go to England, where she had better training opportunities in open-wheel racing than in the United States. She gained the sponsorship of the Mecoms, a Texas racing family, and lived with a host family in England. Suddenly on her own with minimal supervision, she began to lose her focus and spend too much time socializing. As a result, the Mecoms threatened to withdraw her funding; only by agreeing to severe restrictions was Patrick able to continue for a second year of training at Jaguar Racing.

The Emerging Champion

When Patrick returned from England, she was approached by Bobby Rahal of Rahal Letterman Racing, who offered her a place on his development team. For the next several years, she drove in the Toyota Atlantic series, compiling an impressive record of top-five finishes. In 2005, she was moved up to the Indy Racing League (IRL), and on May 29, 2005, she started fourth in the Indianapolis 500. Although she was not the first woman to drive in that famous race, she quickly made her mark as the first woman to lead the race, if only briefly. However, her success was marred by several rookie mistakes, and, in the end, she had to work hard to finish fourth.

Continuing the Story

After her spectacular debut, which resulted in the Rookie of the Year award, Patrick had mixed results in the 2006 racing season. In the 2007 season, she switched to a new team, Andretti-Green, and gained new corporate sponsors. Although she finished four races in the top five, she still could not win a race. As a result, considerable controversy surrounded her. Some people felt that her status as a woman worked to her benefit and that a male driver with similar racing results would have lost sponsorship. Her supporters pointed out her high rankings in the IRL points system, which rose steadily over the first three years of her IRL career, as evidence of genuine, developing talent. Michael Andretti of Andretti-Green regarded her as a rookie even past her first season on the grounds that Rahal-Letterman gave her relatively little opportunity to become acquainted with the tactics of driving. Patrick refused to allow the controversy around her career to disturb her. Finally, on April 20, 2008, Patrick earned her first victory, the Indy Japan 300. She was the first woman to win an IndyCar race.

The following year, Patrick placed third in the Indianapolis 500, and by 2012, she had begun transitioning into racing in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). While she would not have her first full-time season driving in the Sprint Cup Series until 2013, in 2012, she had the opportunity to compete in the Nationwide Series and in a handful of Cup races. In 2013, she signed with Stewart-Haas Racing full-time, driving the number ten car under the sponsorship of the web-hosting company GoDaddy. Early that year, she became the first woman to win the Daytona 500 pole, and she continued racing and posting points for the remainder of the season and through the 2014 season. When GoDaddy announced that it would not be continuing as Patrick's sponsor in early 2015, she and Stewart-Haas had to search for a new corporate backer; by the summer, she had revealed that her new sponsor would be Nature's Bakery.

Patrick's Nature's Bakery sponsorship ended in 2017 when the company declared it could not provide the necessary monetary resources. In September 2017, Patrick announced that she would not be returning to Stewart-Haas Racing after the end of the season, partly due to her sponsorship issues. With no immediate new team lined up, Patrick's NASCAR career appeared to be in jeopardy, and the media speculated on whether she would join a lower-level racing position or retire from driving altogether. Patrick's final NASCAR races in 2018 were labeled the "Danica Double." She raced the 2018 Daytona 500 with Premium Motorsports, although her race came to an abrupt end when she was involved in a six-car crash. Patrick also raced in the Indy 500 in 2018. Observers noted she had already begun to branch into other ventures, including writing a book and beginning a line of athletic clothing. Patrick became a fixture in the media, appearing as a racing commentator but also an actor, making guest appearances and providing voice work. She appeared in the popular Netflix series Drive to Survive, documenting seasons of Formula One racing. Patrick retained numerous endorsements and lent her name to charitable endeavors, including DRIVE4COPD, a cause close to her heart. Although Patrick remained plagued by doubters as to her abilities as a driver, her success was a watershed moment for women in male-dominated sports.

Patrick married Paul Hospenthal, whom she met when he helped with her injury rehabilitation and training in 2005. Although Patrick was raised in a household that paid little attention to formal religion, when she married Hospenthal, she converted to Catholicism, his faith. The couple, however, divorced in 2013.

Summary

Although Danica Patrick was not the first woman to drive in the Indianapolis 500—that distinction belongs to Janet Guthrie, who qualified in 1977—her outstanding performance in the 2005 race made her newsworthy as a rookie driver and not as a woman driver only. Additionally, Patrick’s image and physical attractiveness allowed her to parlay her athletic success into endorsement opportunities. She notably posed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition but concentrated on ensuring that her appearance enhances, rather than detracts from, her professional reputation.

Bibliography

“Danica Patrick Wins Daytona Pole.” ESPN, 17 Feb. 2013, www.espn.com/racing/nascar/cup/story/‗/id/8956961/danica-patrick-first-woman-win-daytona-500-pole. Accessed 10 June 2024.

Hembree, Mike. "Analysis: What's Next for Danica Patrick?" USA Today, 12 Sept. 2017, www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2017/09/12/danica-patrick-future-plans-retiring-staying-nascar/659904001. Accessed 4 Oct. 2017.

Ingram, Jonathan, and Paul Webb. Danica Patrick: America’s Hottest Racer. St. Paul: Motorbooks, 2005.

Martinelli, Michelle. “Forget all the Noise. Danica's Legacy is Clear: She Changed NASCAR Forever.” For The Win, 21 Nov. 2017, ftw.usatoday.com/2017/11/danica-patrick-nascar-retire-last-race-indycar-respect-trolls-fans-career-daytona-indy-500. Accessed 10 June 2024.

“The Official Site of Danica Patrick.” Danica Patrick, danicapatrick.com/danica. Accessed 10 June 2024.

Patrick, Danica, with Laura Morton. Danica: Crossing the Line. New York: Fireside, 2006.