Patrick looks to end career with win
Patrick eases into final race of her career
Danica Patrick will attempt to end her racing career on a high note when she competes in the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday.
INDIANAPOLIS — Danica Patrick strolled into Indianapolis Motor Speedway with a sunburn, a surprise gift from an afternoon spent in Green Bay, reading books while lying in the grass with boyfriend Aaron Rodgers.
As retirement comes racing toward her, she’s never been more at ease — except for one thing.
Patrick was looking relaxed at the final media day of her racing career, wearing white cutoff shorts and $500 Golden Goose sneakers — with just a touch of gray hair at her temples — as she admitted she has never been as nervous as she is heading into her final Indianapolis 500.
She recalled sharing breakfast with her father, the man who led her into racing and helped her become one of the most recognizable female athletes in the world. Now, 36, she asked him about Sunday’s show on the stage where Patrick has always embraced the spotlight.
“I was like, ‘Dad, what do you think the chances are? Do you think I got a shot? I obviously know I have a shot, but let’s talk real, like father-daughter. What have you seen out there?’” Patrick said.
“I’m asking him because I know there’s a chance. I’ve been saying the last few days there’s a difference between the beginning, when I signed up for it — I was hopeful it would go well — there’s a difference between where it is now. Now it’s not just a hope, it’s more of a reality that I’ve really got a shot at it.”
It, of course, is a win, and it would be a remarkable feat should it come to pass — icing on the cake for a driver for years criticized as not good enough for a resume light on wins.
Her farewell tour ends at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She led laps and finished fourth as a rookie in 2005, was a career-best third in 2009 and the only time she finished outside the top 10 in seven starts was when she was involved in a crash on pit road.
She moved to NASCAR full-time after the 2011 season, in part because that’s where sponsor GoDaddy wanted her to be, and because it was time for the only female driver to win an IndyCar race to try something new. NASCAR started out OK, and Patrick won the pole for the Daytona 500, and to this day she’s the only woman to lead laps in both the Indy 500 and Daytona 500.
But she never got comfortable in stock cars. She never won a race, never scored a top-five finish.
And just like that, after six full seasons, she was done. Her sponsorship had dried up and Patrick had to figure out her next move. The girl from Illinois, who left home at 16 to move to Europe and chase her dreams of being a professional race car driver, had no more racing ahead of her.
Patrick is not a quitter, though. She lives her life without looking back. So she was determined to go out her own way, which was through a “Danica Double,” the 500-mile showcase races at Daytona and Indianapolis.