FemmeFan Weekly

June 2, 2008

Danica Is Pissed Off!

Danica Patrick may be a star, and she may be sexy cash cow for endorsers, but she is a competitor.  As a woman first and a female race car driver, second, when she thinks she's been wronged she can get pretty damned pissed off.

I don't follow racing but even I was curious to see how Danica would do this weekend at the Indy 500.
I was sitting at a bar with my husband Mike on Sunday watching ESPN and thinking, who gives a shit?
The NBA? Nah, nobody I like is in the finals.
The NHL? Nope, another contest I have no interest in since the Sharks got knocked out. I casually watched the screen and thought how nice it was not to have to worry about writing an article about my true love, football.

And then a funny thing happened on my way to casual disinterest, the crawl at the bottom of the screen flashed, “Danica Patrick knocked out of contention in a crash”.
What??? I immediately asked the bartender to make it louder and to switch the channel to the race channel. But I was the only one interested in having the station changed so I settled for getting snippets of information as they came crawling along the bottom the screen.

So here it is ladies and gents. The woman who may be the best female race car driver of our generation and who may have had a legitimate shot at becoming the first woman to win the Indy 500 was knocked out by New Zealander Scott Dixon in what amounts to a lane change without making the proper signal.
And Danica reacted the way anyone who has ever been cut off would, she was pissed! Only this wasn't a simple case of road rage it was a legitimate rant from a woman who was closing in on history.

Patrick jumped out of her car and stormed down pit lane in search of Briscoe until security officials stopped her.
"As people pull out of their pit boxes, if you are in the outside lane, then they have to wait to blend in," said Patrick, who last month became the first woman to win an IndyCar series race with her triumph in Japan." It looked like it was pretty obvious what happened. You just don't come out of your pit box and swing three lanes out."

Danica may be little but she's tough and she doesn't back down. In a much publicized confrontation she got involved in a shoving match with Dan Wheldon after a race last year.

Asked what would have happened if she had reached Briscoe's pit area, she replied: "It is probably best I didn't get down (there) anyway, isn't it?"

I may not be a race car fan, but damn, I may just have to go out and buy a Danica Patrick hat to show off the next time I’m at that bar.

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