One last drive for Danica
Danica Patrick will get into a race car for her last competitive motor sports race Sunday when she returns to IndyCar racing for the 102nd Indianapolis 500. She says she’s going out on her terms with the finale of the Danica Double.
INDIANAPOLIS – Three days before the last race of her career, Danica Patrick is feeling a little bit of everything — a little nervous, a little excited, a little anxious. That’s how she usually feels before a race, especially a big one, and it’s all part of keeping her final race weekend normal.
But she’s ready for her career finale, Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“It’s not like I’m going to try harder, it’s not like I’m going to drive scared,” Patrick told USA TODAY on Thursday. “I’m just going to drive like I normally drive; whatever happens, happens.”
The slight deviation from normalcy is doing more of what she wants to do, such as having a glass of wine alone at her parents’ house after qualifying seventh Sunday. Then there’s a little extra thought about what it would mean to do well. Or even to win.
“It would just be …” she said, pausing to think, “(expletive) awesome.”
Patrick, 36, will have a shot to improve her career-best third-place finish in the Indy 500, also the record for female drivers. From the third row, she’ll pilot the No. 13 GoDaddy Chevrolet for Ed Carpenter Racing for one more race before retiring from the sport.
Regardless of where Patrick finishes among the 32 other drivers at the Brickyard, she leaves behind a trail of pioneering accomplishments in a maledominated industry.
“I was very fortunate,” she said of her career. “I had some high points along the way, and I had fun. I was miserable sometimes because I cared so much about succeeding, and I did it my way.”
She was the first and remains the only woman to race consistently full time in both IndyCar and NASCAR. She was the first female driver to win an IndyCar race — the 2008 Indy Japan 300 — and to lead laps in the Indy 500, which she did as a rookie in 2005.
Fourteen years later, Patrick is the first and the only woman to consistently compete full time in IndyCar and NASCAR. St. James said that on-track persistence “influenced any young female who’s paid attention.”
“She’s a lightning rod,” St. James continued. “She’s created controversy and discussions, and people are talking about her and talking about a female in racing. She carried the weight and the load for the duration of these years.”
St. James hosted Patrick as a teenager at her driver development program in 1996 and 1997, and she saw that “it” factor in the young driver — what St. James described as a serious, realistic and healthy attitude.
That eventually translated into Patrick winning the 2008 Japan 300 in Motegi City, becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar race, and a personalbest third-place finish in the Indy 500 in 2009, still a record for female drivers.
“I always respected her as a driver, even before she got her win at Motegi, because she’s always been an extremely hard worker,” Ed Carpenter, the ownerdriver she’ll compete for and against on race day, told IndyCar this month.
“She’s clearly passionate about this sport, and she was just a competitor like everyone else. So it was fun competing against her, and it’s fun being part of this final experience for her.”
Unless Patrick wins Sunday, her victory in Japan will be the only one of her career. But she remained competitive, which boosted her fame, kept the spotlight on racing and attracted fans.
“If you see somebody doing something, you subconsciously think it’s possible for you,” said Katherine Legge, who ran in the 2012 and 2013 Indy 500s.
Representation endures as a key element of Patrick’s legacy. While her impact is challenging to quantify, Legge said she will be remembered as a “solid driver” who transcended racing and, with St. James and Sarah Fisher, “undoubtedly opened doors” for women.
But as Patrick shifts her attention from racing to her business ventures — her athleisure clothing line, her wine company and her health and fitness book — St. James believes how her racing career is remembered is largely dependent on what she does next.
“In another 10 years, it’s my hope that there will be five others out there to carry on the legacy she established,” St. James said. “If she doesn’t remain relevant and active in motor sports, that would be too bad.”
Patrick has always been about inspiring people — not exclusively women — but said being a racing mentor is “not really something that interests” her. She’s eager to get away from the demanding racing schedule she’s lived with for much of her life.
“But never say never,” Patrick said in February at the Daytona 500, her final NASCAR race. “I never thought I‘d do the Indy 500 again, but look at me now.”