Danica Patrick, last year’s Indy Racing League rookie sensation, launches her sophomore season in the Toyota Indy 300 on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The 5-foot-2, 100-pound driver, who turns 24 on Saturday, became the first woman to lead the Indy 500 and placed fourth, the best finish for a woman in the prestigious race.
Following that came unprecedented attention and endorsement deals with non-racing products, including Secret anti-perspirant, Hostess snack cakes and Tissot watches. She has come a long way from 2003, when she posed scantily clad for FHM before breaking into the IRL. In November, she married physical therapist Paul Hospenthal, 40. Danica — Crossing the Line, a book she wrote with author Laura Morton, will be released May 2.
Patrick agreed to an interview with South Florida Sun-Sentinel sports-business writer Sarah Talalay earlier this month while taking time for a pedicure at a Miami Beach salon.
Patrick, who’s steely tough on the racetrack, says it might surprise her fans to know she enjoys being “girlie” — getting pedicures and having her hair and makeup done — and that she prefers wearing skirts to jeans.
Q&A; (begins on Page 10C)
Q. I hear pedicures are one of your indulgences.
A. Yes, I think everybody deserves a pedicure every week, all girls do. It’s important, it’s good for you. I think whether it’s a pedicure or a nap, or a trip to the mall or whether it’s a massage, I think you should take a little bit of time for yourself and I think it’s a healthy thing to do.
Q. Are you having fun?
A. Right now, sure (she laughs, gesturing at the pedicure). In my life, yeah. Sometimes I wonder what made me so lucky to be where I’m at, what I did to deserve it. I have a really wonderful husband, I have a wonderful career, I’ve had success already, in such a difficult series, the IRL. I’m just really fortunate, really lucky, really blessed to be where I am today. You just count those blessings and never stop trying, it can go away in an instant.
Q. Any idea what you’d be doing if you weren’t a racecar driver?
A. I have no idea because I’ve never had to think about it. I started racing when I was 10 years old, and from the time I started racing, I started thinking I wanted to go to college for engineering. That way I could work on my racecar and know how to change it and make it go faster. And that was from time I was 10. … The first thing I wanted to be was a veterinarian, but then I decided that was not good because I had to put needles in dogs, and sometimes you had to put them to sleep, and I decided that was going to be the end of my veterinarian job. Then I wanted to be a secretary, because I thought it was really cool. I just loved the thought of dressing up and answering the phone and putting it down on a schedule and I don’t know, I thought it was kind of fun. And then I wanted to be a singer, but that ended soon, because I didn’t really like my teacher. And after that I wanted to be racecar driver.
Q. What kind of advice do you have for young girls who are thinking they want to be drivers?
A. I think they need to try it out and have fun with it, and see if it is what they want to do, if they love it and are willing to do anything, they can probably get there.
Q. Are you surprised at the level of interest in you?
A. It was a bigger deal probably at Indy than what I knew because I was right in the middle of it, because I was the one driving the car, not watching TV every day and seeing everything that was going on outside. … I’m not surprised. I mean sponsors need something cool and something new and something fresh and different that people are going to pay attention to, recognize the product that I’m standing and endorsing. And it makes sense, I’m very different, but again you have to take advantage of them when they’re there, because they’re not always there.
Q. Do you consider yourself an athlete?
A. Oh absolutely. We’re in the car for anywhere from two-and-a-half to four hours, and we’re sweating and we’re mentally and physically working and so, we’re definitely athletes. And it looks really easy. And everybody equates it to driving their road car, but it’s absolutely different than that. There’s no power steering in the car. You are pushing yourself to your limit the whole time. And if you come to the race, you’ll see, all the drivers are very fit, they’re ripped. You can’t get away with not being fit.
Q. Three words that best describe you?
A. Determined. Focused. Driven. They all kind of fall in the same category. I think they spill into many areas. If you’re determined, you’re determined to do anything. If you’re focused, you’ll be able to get your grocery shopping done really fast, it doesn’t matter what it is.
Q. What, if anything, scares you?
A. Failing. Not being with my husband … if one day he was gone, that’s very sad. I get to see him a lot. He comes to all the races.
Q. Is there anything you’re not good at?
A. I took tumbling when I was a kid because I was a cheerleader and I wasn’t very good at tumbling. And I’m not very good at video games because I never play them. Every time I try I’m not very good, I don’t try very often because if I’m not good at it, I just don’t do it.
Q. What do you do in your free time?
A. My husband and I, we love to cook, we take a lot of time and make meals and we watch reality TV. It’s really simple watching, it doesn’t really take a lot of brain power. It’s good. It kind of lets me relax.
Q. Do you drive your personal car fast?
A. I do. I drive fast, but I don’t drive ridiculously fast. I just like to drive. I don’t like to follow. If somebody wants to do 90-95 on the highway, I’ll let them pass me, but I’m not very good at following somebody doing 82 miles an hour. I’ll go 85 just because I can’t quite follow.
Q. Have you been pulled over?
A. I’ve been pulled over a lot. I don’t get pulled over as much, because now they have cameras that just take my picture. But I do get pulled over. I’ve been pulled over probably a dozen times or so.
Q. Are there endorsement opportunities you’ve turned down?
A. Oh yes, certain things I’ve turned down, they don’t excite me, they don’t make sense, they’re not enough money. … I do the ones that make sense. The ones that excite me, the ones I think would be funny, the ones that would get me good publicity along with the endorsement deal that it is, it would also have a good marketing campaign, because that keeps your name out there. Because you’re not racing all year long, not always in the front, not always qualifying on the pole, not always winning races. But with the endorsements it does keep you out there, keeps people excited about you and keeps a large fan base.
Q. Is that why you agreed to deals with brands like Secret and Hostess?
A. I’ve used Secret since I was a girl. A little girl? I am still a girl, as you can clearly see. So you know they’re a huge great brand. I was more than happy to endorse their product. And Hostess, I have a large fan base of kids and I’ve got voicemails left on my phone, from my nieces, “Danica we saw you in the grocery store. Hi Aunt Danica. OK, bye.” That’s the kid fan base and I have a lot of them. It was a good idea, good thing to do. Everywhere there’s a Hostess stand, I’m right there. I walk by the grocery store and grab my milk, I look over to the left I’m like, “Geez, there I am.”
Q. Do you consider yourself a sex symbol?
A. Obviously not today (laughs at her shorts and T-shirt). They can make you up however they want to. I think most people don’t look exactly the same in photos as in real life, but I definitely have a contrast to myself. I like to look pretty and I like to look sexy and I like to look like a girl and I like to have my makeup done and my hair and my toes painted, and it’s good, it’s all fun, but then I’m very tough at the track, so I think that contrast is kind of cool. It’s attractive to sponsors and I’m able to show a little bit of personality.
Q. Did you hesitate before agreeing to the FHM shoot?
A. No, man, I was all over it. Unfortunately it was like my first ever real photo shoot, so I didn’t really know exactly how to pose or what to do, but I had fun and I didn’t know what it was going to be all about. All I knew it was a 20-page speed section in their magazine. I didn’t know if I was going to have one photo and be in my race suit, or if I was going to be dressed like I was, but it was dressed like I was. But it was fun, I don’t regret it, I never second guessed it.
Q. Would you do it now?
A. No, I wouldn’t do it now. I’m so fortunate to be able to pick what kind of media I want to do, what direction I want it to go. I don’t need to do things that don’t appeal to all of my fans. You have your whole career to do things afterward or later on that you want. I’ve done some of that, I’ve had fun with it and it worked. I’d love to be in, like, Vogue or Glamour or Cosmopolitan. Now I think those would be cool. I’ve always wanted to do a really pretty photo shoot, something where I was kind of high fashion, as opposed to like half-dressed.
Q. Where do you draw the line? Playboy was interested and you said no.
A. And FHM was interested again and Maxim was, too, and some of them wanted covers. It’s just not what I’m doing right now and I said no. I don’t regret that either.
Q. You don’t want to be viewed in the same way as Anna Kournikova is?
A. It’s just because she didn’t win a major tournament, I don’t think, and she was overwhelmingly prettier than probably what she was talented. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t talented, it just means she was really pretty. She’s a beautiful girl, so I feel bad that she was critiqued so badly. I feel bad that somebody would walk away from her career, thinking she was a horrible tennis player. … Would I want my career to end with someone saying, “Oh, she was just pretty and that was it?” No, because, again, I don’t think that’s true, not even if I stopped today.
Q. The comparison, though, is about winning a race.
A. Sure. I’d love to. You can never tell when, but the facts would still say that even if I won a race in the average amount of time a normal driver wins their first race, that still puts me into next year. Thirty-three races is what it takes a normal driver to win their first race, and at the end of this year I think we’ll be at like 32 or 31, or something. It still puts me into next year. So it’s like, you know, lots of great things happened really fast and that’s why people talk about winning and I’m flattered that they have.
Q. There’s been talk of your moving to NASCAR or Formula One. Do those interest you?
A. It might happen one day, but it might not. I think I have to go where the fun is for me. I’ve lived in England and I’ve traveled into Europe and stuff, and … right now I’m not excited about Europe very much, so therefore I’m happy where I am in the States. I have my family and my friends, and NASCAR is just so many races. You race almost every single weekend, it seems like … that you don’t have a life. My husband still works a little bit. By no means would I want to be away from him that much. It’s all about what makes you happy in your life. And your life is way too short to just work. And so what if you make a lot of money at the end of it if you can’t do anything with it. Or if you didn’t have a good life because you were just working the whole time, what was the point?
For more of the interview, go to Sarah Talalay can be reached at .
WITH DANICA PATRICK. HERE ARE HER FAVORITES:
Foods: Chocolate, cottage cheese and pineapple.
Breakfast: Oatmeal and egg whites.
TV shows: Reality junkie. Desperate Housewives, The Office, House, The Bachelor, The Apprentice, America’s Next Top Model.
“You have to TIVO those. They’re on at the same time, some of those.”
In her iPod: Alanis Morissette “She’s my favorite, I listen to her more than anything. I like all the chart music.” Maroon 5, Alicia Keys.
Places to travel: Islands.
Personal cars: 645 BMW and an Acura MDX.
