Gearing Up for a Run at History
23-Year-Old IRL Rookie Patrick Aims To Be First Woman to Win Indy 500
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Saturday, May 28, 2005
INDIANAPOLIS, May 27 -- A magazine advertisement for the Indy Racing League shows racecar driver Danica Patrick posing in black leather with one hand on her hip. It's accompanied by the words, "We heard you like to watch."
Ads such as that one have the eyes of the racing world fixed on Patrick, a 23-year-old IRL rookie who on Sunday will attempt to become the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500 and who the IRL hopes will rekindle sagging interest in the circuit.
"It's fairly special for a woman to come into a male-dominated sport and do well," 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner Kenny Brack said. "So I understand all the attention she is getting. She is a young, photogenic woman."
Patrick will be the fourth woman to compete in the race. But there's one major difference between Patrick and the women who came before. And it's not that she wears a skirt in the garage and occasionally sports pink fingernails.
"She's the first woman to arrive with good equipment," said Janet Guthrie, who became the first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 1977. "One step at a time, we've seen progress. The world is ready for a woman to win the Indianapolis 500."
That hasn't always been the case, Guthrie, 67, recalled in a telephone interview.
"When I came here, none of the oval drivers had ever raced against a woman," she said. "And they weren't too happy about it. All I had to do was open a newspaper and read all the comments drivers were making about me -- that I would never qualify, that I was dangerous, that I couldn't handle one of these machines.
"But attitudes have changed. People are now used to the idea that women can be fast and be competitive. Danica is a very confident, determined young woman."
Patrick is confident to the point some might describe her as brash.
"There's nothing I want to do more than to win this race," she told reporters Thursday. "I will be fair, but I will do what it takes. We have a great car and we have the potential to do well. . . . We definitely go into it with a lot of confidence and a lot of expectation to do well."
Cocky? Perhaps. Those who know her say that just the way she is.
Patrick drives for one of the IRL's top teams, Rahal Letterman Racing, and she has proven she has the talent to maximize her opportunity. Patrick qualified second last month at Motegi (Japan), led twice for 32 laps and finished fourth, the best finish of her career.
