Danica Patrick 2015   2015 Snippets 2015 Schedule & Results Race Recap 2015 News Gene Haas says Danica Patrick move to Formula One is "possible" Danica Patrick: Why Her Fans Just Can’t Get Enough Danica Patrick Ad Ruffles Some Transgender Feathers Danica Patrick's Moob Signing Became a New Commercial for Boost Mobile Danica Patrick Go Daddy Speeding Commercial - Internet only version! Danica Patrick's autobiography Danica Patrick reveals a side of herself you didn't know Danica, Earnhardt Jr. top Daytona practices Danica Patrick's switch to NASCAR came at welcome time NASCAR power couple has learned to lean on each other Kenny Wallace supports Patrick Danica rides momentum toward ZZ Top's Texas NASCAR power couple has learned to lean on each other Kenny Wallace supports Patrick Danica rides momentum toward ZZ Top's Texas Patrick appears in Jay-Z video Danica Patrick's autobiography   Danica Patrick drove for Rahal-Letterman Racing 2005-2006 where she is shattering records, becoming the first women in history to win a pole position in the Toyota Atlantic Championship. At the age of ten, Danica exploded onto the karting scene, placing second in points against 20 other drivers. In her second year she began to climb, racing in the WKA Midwest Sprint Series in Yamaha Sportsman and US 820 Sportsman, placing second and breaking two track records in a single day. By Danica’s third year, she had seized her first national points championship in WKA Manufacturer’s Cup in the Yamaha Sportsman class. By the age of thirteen, she had won the WKA Great Lakes Sprint Series title in the Yamaha Restricted Junior and US 820 Junior classes. Danica solidified her reputation the following year in the Yamaha Jr. and Yamaha Restricted Jr. classes winning a knock-out 39 of 49 feature races. In her last year of karting she won the Grand National championship in the Yamaha Lite and HPV Lite classes. By the age of sixteen Danica was racing in the Formula Vauxhall Winter Series in England, placing in the top ten of the 14 races. 2000 was a record year for 18 year old Danica when she finished second in the England Formula Ford Festival, the highest finishing American driver since 1998, stunning the critical British racing community. This success brought her to the attention of three-time Champ Cat titleholder and 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal, who believes that Danica is the next female sports star in North America. Danica became a household name when she entered the Toyota Atlantic Series and became the first full-time female driver in the history of the series. 2003 has been a key year for this young and talented driver as she shows that she’s got what it takes to win. With a choice of the Indy or Champ Car series next year, this could be the time that she climbs into the racing limelight. 2015 Snippets Danica started the final race of the season in the lowest spot of the season for her - 35th. She finished in 24th and finished the season in 24th, just in front of boy-friend Ricky Stenhouse Jr. She lead 14 laps during the season with an average start in 22.4, average finish in 23.5 with 4 DNFs. *    *    * Danica started 27th at Dayton. She was involved in a accident on lap 126 that took her out of the race. This is the first race of the year where she wasn't running at the finish. She finished 35th. *    *    * Danica started 21st at Sonoma and worked her way up to the 10th spot. She started falling back rather rapidly to at least 27th and worked her way back up to finish 24th. *    *    * Danica started 33rd at Dover and ended up 15th across the finish line.So far this year, she has still been running at the end of every race. No DNFs. Go Danica. *    *    * Danica started 20th and finished 22nd at Charlotte *    *    * Danica finished 7th at Martinsville. *    *    * NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France talks about GoDaddy ending sponsorship with Danica Patrick and how he is confident in Patrick's future. *    *    * Danica loses GoDaddy sponsorship. *    *    * Danica finished 7th at Martinsville. *    *    *   News Gene Haas says Danica Patrick move to Formula One is "possible" "If the right sponsor came along, then anything is possible,” Patrick’s Sprint Cup car owner Gene Haas told Reuters at this year’s Spanish Grand Prix. The California businessman is launching a new Formula One team in 2016 and will need to lock in drivers this year. Patrick, who started her career driving open-wheel cars and is the only woman to win a race in IndyCar, is losing longtime sponsor GoDaddy next year, a setback that could present new opportunities for the 33-year-old driver. "Danica Patrick is highly marketable and if anything we're very lucky that GoDaddy is giving us enough time to find a sponsor that she'll fit with, because she can sell anything," Haas said. Haas has previously said he expects to hire a Formula One veteran, regardless of national origin, that he hopes to pair with an American. "It would be a home run to put an American driver in an American Formula One team, but it takes a lot of alignment of the stars for that to happen." An American hasn’t competed in Formula One since Scott Speed left the series in 2007, and only two women have ever started a race, the last being Italian Lella Lombardi in 1976. British driver Susie Wolff is currently a development driver for the Williams F1, but told Autoweek that she feels “very far away” from being given the chance to get on the grid. Source: www.foxnews.com/leisure/2015/05/13/gene-haas-says-danica-patrick-move-to-formula-one-is-possible/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_534205 Danica Patrick: Why Her Fans Just Can’t Get Enough A marketing machine. A spokesperson. A competitor. A trail blazer. The best female race car driver of all-time. Danica Patrick has been called them all. Being one of the most successful female drivers in a male dominated sport comes with notoriety and if one thing is for sure, fans just can’ t get enough of Danica Patrick. The Early Years – Danica Patrick’s love affair with racing began at the early age of 10. The thrill of competing in Go-Kart races in her home state of Wisconsin led to her desire to pursue different outlets for racing. A journey that would take her overseas and back home again. At the age of 16, Patrick moved to England and joined the British National Series. In three years of racing there, Patrick had minor success (including a second-place finish in Britain’s Formula Ford Festival) and she decided to advance her racing career by returning to the United States. Though she never won a race in the Toyota Atlantic Championship series, Patrick consistently placed in the top three and finished third overall in the championship. Based on those results, in 2005 Patrick’s sponsor Rahal Letterman Racing decided it was time to have Patrick make the jump to IndyCar Racing. #1 She’s A Trailblazer Screen Shot 2015-03-20 at 3.55.59 PM On May 29th, 2005, Danica Patrick became the fourth woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500. This alone was enough to make headlines and turn Patrick into a pop culture/sports personality, but it was clear that Patrick wanted more. Patrick led for 19 laps of her first Indy 500 and eventually finished fourth, the highest finish of any woman at the time to have participated in the race. Out to prove that she was much more than just a token female in a man’s world, Patrick raced well enough in 2005 to win the Rookie of the Year for IndyCar racing. Later, in 2009, she would go onto finish third in the Indy 500 and end up in fifth place overall in the IndyCar Series. Then, in 2011,knowing that she was one of the best drivers in her sport, Patrick made another change. As the ambitious always do, Patrick wanted to challenge herself and compete with the best in the world. #2 She’s Insanely Talented Patrick began her NASCAR career in the Nationwide Series. Racing in her GoDaddy.com car, Patrick finished fourth in the Sam’s Town 300 Nationwide Series race, the highest finish ever for a woman in NASCAR. Adding to her accolades, in 2013 Patrick became the first woman to win a pole position for a NASCAR race when she qualified for the Daytona 500. In the race itself, Patrick led for a few laps and eventually placed 8th, the highest a female has ever placed in the history of that race. Though Patrick’s NASCAR career has been checkered and sometimes filled with controversy, she continues to impress. In 2014, in a career already filled with firsts, Patrick led six laps in the race at Talladega. She finished in 22nd place at the race which was the best finish ever by a female driver at Talladega. Patrick’s first two years in the Sprint Cup have also brought her Top 30 overall finishes in the Cup standings. #3 She’s Loyal To Her Fans Screen Shot 2015-03-20 at 3.55.49 PMIn being the most popular female driver in car racing, opportunities have come along for Patrick to market and brand herself. She has been a spokesperson for GoDaddy.com for years and did commercials for Secret deodorant in 2005 and 2006. Her acting has carried over in a guest appearance on CSI:NY and she voiced herself on an episode of The Simpsons. Patrick has graced the cover of numerous magazines, including Sports Illustrated. She even has appeal to kids, as she was selected favorite female athlete in 2008 and 2012 at the Kids Choice Awards. Through it all, Danica Patrick has proven that she is out to be much more than a trail blazer. She not only wants to be respected, but she wants to be competitive. Patrick will not just show up and be known as that “female” driver. She is going to go toe-to-toe with the best around. For that, she earns respect. Patrick is willing to be competitive, laugh at herself, work hard, and seek to accomplish her goals all while maintaining her position as a public figure and role model. For these reasons, Danica Patrick continues to be someone the fans just can’t get enough of. Source: http://fasterthanviral.com/danica-patrick-nascar/?utm_source=OutB&utm_medium=Discov&utm_campaign=OutDanica7 Danica Patrick Ad Ruffles Some Transgender Feathers A new television ad for telecommunications company Boost Mobile featuring spokeswoman Danica Patrick has ruffled a few feathers in the transgender blogosphere over its use of cross-dressing actors. In the thirty-second spot, Patrick, famous for being the pioneering female competitor in the male-dominated sport of NASCAR racing, is shown pulling up to a pit stop, where her car is serviced by a crew of men wearing high heels, miniskirts and bright orange tops. “What? You think this is wrong?” Patrick says to the camera before launching into script about how “wrong” it is to pay too much for phone service. “It’s just teamwork,” she concludes about her oddly dressed servicemen, before speeding off again. The Trans Universe blog published a commentary by a Sprint Nextel employee decrying what it calls the use of “men in women’s clothes in a negative context.” The author, Monica Helms, describes her attempt to raise a complaint with the company on behalf of the transgender community which she says “went ballistic” after seeing the commercial. A second spot in Boost’s “Unwronged” ad campaign shows several men asking Patrick to sign their particularly ample breasts, or “moobs,” as one of the creators of the campaign calls them in an explanatory video, after which Patrick recites essentially the same script. Not all members of the GLBT blogosphere shared Trans Universe’s objections however. Outsports.com pointed out Patrick’s unique role as a woman in a male-dominated sport whose “entire career and persona has been built on bending gender stereotypes.” A comment on Helms’ article suggested, “Let’s not position ourselves in opposition to this barrier-smashing woman. She’s not going after us, and I don’t think this has anything to do with us.” While reactions have been decidedly split on Boost’s humorous ad campaign, the ultimate outcome was probably best described in a headline on the Deadspin blog: “Add Trannies to the List of People Faintly Annoyed by Danica Patrick.” Check out the video below and decide for yourself. Offensive or not? Source: www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?ID=23034 The Commercial Making of the Commercials Danica Patrick's Moob Signing Became a New Commercial for Boost Mobile Boost Mobile -- it's a classy company that allows you to pay per month for cell phone minutes in advance. It's also the company that's now rocking out a new commercial featuring Danica Patrick signing mens' breasts. So, yeah, classy as all get out. (Although still pretty funny, so credit to the marketing people who continue to find hilarious/attractive ways to get Danica involved in advertising, even if they did manage to cheese off the transgender demographic. Source: backporch.fanhouse.com/2009/06/05/danica-patricks-moob-signing-became-a-new-commercial-for-boost/ Danica Patrick reveals a side of herself you didn't know If you thought you knew everything about NASCAR driver Danica Patrick, think again. When the 32-year-old sat down with AOL.com'san Balthazar, one of the most successful professional female race car drivers in history revealed five things that might surprise you. 1. Danica has anxiety behind the wheel She may have the ultimate control on the speedway when she's suited up for a big race, but when she's going to the grocery store in a civilian car the anxiety sets in. "I'm very impatient. I have physical anxiety when riding in a car with someone or driving," says Patrick. She explains that even if she's got her own two hands on the wheel she's still got that need for speed. "If I can't get my way through or if somebody's driving next to someone who won't go... bumper-to-bumper traffic doesn't bother me because there's nothing I can do about it. But if I see open road in front of the car that's in front of me, I get very frustrated... Go!" Take notes, people. If you see Danica Patrick in the rear view mirror? Move! 2. Danica drives crazier than her racer boyfriend Yes, she's the female face of NASCAR, but there's nothing girly about her behind the wheel. She tells AOL.com that when it comes to driving off the track the only person she'll cede the wheel to is her boyfriend, fellow NASCAR driver Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. "My boyfriend is a race car driver so then now we have a whole new scenario. I drive a lot more crazy on the road than him so I let him get the tickets potentially, not me." How considerate! 3. When she was single, guys wouldn't talk to her? Patrick is not just a top-notch race car driver but she commands her model looks on-screen and in print as she did in the ever-popular Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue back in 2008. But believe it or not, she tells us, when she was single guys didn't really hit on her. She jokingly said, "Apparently, I'm intimidating! That's why no one wants to talk to me and no guy likes me." (um, side note, a LOT of guys like you!) "Someone talked to me! That's all it took!" When it comes to the first move, she laughed and said, "I don't know, I think it comes from friendships, you know, that are easy." 4. It's not that lonely at the top! You'd think in the male-dominated sport of race car driving, Patrick would want to look over the rim of her helmet to send a nod to a fellow female so she wouldn't be the only gal grooving her way through the testosterone. But she tells us, it's not about the gender, it's about the race. "I like being a role model. I like being different. It's cool. It makes me feel special. It makes me feel confident in a lot of ways, but I wouldn't care either way. I would still have that determination to beat them whether they were a guy or a girl out there, but it's fun to be different." 5. Which famous race car driver inspired her? No one! At 32, Danica could easily have built her career by witnessing some of the greats of race car driving when she was a kid. But she says she actually didn't have a raceway role model! "I learned a lot from my mom and my dad. I didn't really have an idol or a role model. I wanted to be the first me, not the next somebody else. I didn't think of myself wanting to be like anyone." It's easy to see why Danica Patrick is a groundbreaker and now a role model to others. If you've been a fan of Patrick's and have lead-foot envy, you may want to check out her latest toy called the CanAm Spyder. A three-wheeled motorcycle-like vehicle Danica says makes you feel, "...naughty! You're out on the road and you're like 'Wait! There's nothing around me! Is this legal? Trust me, it's very fun." For more information check out canamspyder.com. Source: http://www.aol.com/article/2014/04/04/danica-patrick-reveals-a-side-of-herself-you-didnt-know/20863062/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_161950&ncid=txtlnkusaolp00001361 Danica, Earnhardt Jr. top Daytona practices Danica Patrick's car number atop the scoring pylon is not an unfamiliar site at Daytona International Speedway and the 2013 Daytona 500 pole-winner set the fast pace again Friday in the final Sprint Cup Series practice for Sunday's Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola (7:45 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM). Patrick's No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet posted a lap of 198.133 mph to lead a Stewart-Haas Racing sweep of the late afternoon session, pacing teammates Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart. Patrick has two top-10 finishes in six Cup starts on the Daytona high banks, including an eighth-place showing in the 2013 Daytona 500 -- the best ever finish for a woman in NASCAR's premier event. Patrick's speed was still slower than Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s 202.284 mph effort in the opening practice when teams did more drafting. Her speed came during mostly single car runs and she was upbeat and encouraged about the weekend. "You've got what you got when you show up at a superspeedway,'' Patrick said. "I'm glad we got a couple single car runs in. While guys like Tony (Stewart) have no problem going from last to first, I find it challenging so I'd like to have a good qualifying session.'' Hendrick Motorsports drivers, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson were just behind the SHR contingent in the final practice. "I've had the luxury of being with a really good team and Hendrick builds a really fast engine,'' Patrick said, humbly explaining her success on NASCAR's most famous track. "It sounds cheesy, but really, it's great team and great engines." A win Sunday for Patrick would gain her a provisional entry into the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship. After early season gains that kept her in the top-16 in the points standings, she is now ranked 19th entering the Coke Zero 400. “I always like going there,'' Patrick said of Daytona. "It’s where my first stock-car start was in 2010 and I actually have a lot of experience there. "At the end of the day, you just need to be in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is out of your control. But I think we’ll be good and hopefully have a car that can compete and win.” Aside from a handful of moderate-sized packs that formed early in the 55-minute session, teams largely focused on making single-car runs ahead of Saturday's Coors Light Pole Qualifying (4:35 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network). Teams especially shied away from drafting in large groups after an 11-car crash in the early stages of opening practice forced several teams to utilize backup cars. Dale Jr. avoids large wreck, paces first practice Dale Earnhardt Jr. rose to the top of the speed charts Friday afternoon in opening NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice, a session interrupted early by an 11-car pileup at Daytona International Speedway. Earnhardt, a three-time winner at the 2.5-mile track, landed atop the 55-minute practice with a fast lap of 202.284 mph in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet. He was among 14 drivers to clock laps above the 200-mph barrier. Austin Dillon, a former Daytona 500 pole-starter driving the Richard Childress Racing No. 3 Chevrolet, was second-fastest at 202.066 mph. Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard and Trevor Bayne completed the top five. Defending Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick, the current series points leader, was 35th-fastest in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Chevrolet. Defending race winner Aric Almirola, in the Richard Petty Motorsports No. 43 Ford, was 37th-best of the 44 drivers to turn laps. Approximately 10 minutes after the track opened for practice, the cars of Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch tangled, sending Busch's Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota sliding up the Turn 2 high banks. Other drivers piled in, forcing several teams to unload their backup cars. Source: www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2015/7/3/nascar-sprint-cup-series-daytona-international-speedway-coke-zero-400-practice.html Danica Patrick's switch to NASCAR came at welcome time Adjust your wikis and biography material accordingly: Danica Patrick is no longer an open wheel driver making a mid-career shift to NASCAR. She’s fully vested. In making her 115th Sprint Cup start this weekend at Martinsville Speedway, the 33-year-old Stewart-Haas Racing driver will equal in four seasons the entirety of her seven-year Indy Car career. “It just shows how much more racing there is in NASCAR,” Patrick told USA TODAY Sports. “I think NASCAR could probably do with a few less races and I think IndyCar could probably do with a few more. For us, I think five less our way and five more the other way probably would be about the right amount of races for each.” The death of driver Justin Wilson in August after being struck in the head by a piece of debris at Pocono, and a serious injury sustained by James Hinchcliffe after his car was pierced by a suspension piece at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May underscored the danger still inherent to IndyCar racing, and for Patrick, how fortunate she was to leave the sport so healthy. Her most serious injury was bruising after crashing in her first IndyCar race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2005. “I got knocked out, probably, for a second,” Patrick said. “I got out of the car, and I don’t remember anything, and I stumbled around, and I don’t really remember …. I kept repeating myself in the car ride to the hospital, and I had a lot of bruising and a lot of bumps and bangs around my body, but other than that, I got very fortunate. I did not hit the wall at Indy at any point in all my laps there. Big tracks, fast tracks like that I got pretty lucky. Everything from that to when Dan (Wheldon) and Dario (Franchitti) flipped down the back straight at Michigan (in 2007) and got airborne. I mean, I was right behind that. I was third and I watched Dario go over the top of me, so I mean, I got very fortunate from a safety perspective in IndyCars.” Franchitti, a three-time Indianapolis 500-winner and four-time series champion, was forced to retire in 2013 as a result of injuries incurred at a street course race in Houston. Paul Dana, Patrick’s teammate at then-Rahal Letterman Racing, was killed in a crash in a warm-up session before the Homestead event in 2006. Wheldon, a former series champion and two-time Indianapolis 500-winner, perished in Patrick’s last series start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2011. Patrick said that although it didn’t impact her decision to begin transitioning to NASCAR in 2010, a growing recklessness by some IndyCar drivers on ovals — her strength and favored form of racing — concerned her. “I felt so much pressure about the very last race in Vegas,” Patrick said. “Oval racing got a lot less safe because there was a lot more drivers that either didn’t care or didn’t get it and ones without as much experience and European drivers and road course drivers and it just made it much more messy. “It went from being able to go three-wide no problem, with a little bit of movement, but by no means did you feel like you were going to crash to, like, if you have any sort of conscience or intelligence for what can happen with tires coming together in an IndyCar, you were like, ‘This is stupid.’” Patrick said that phenomenon — still bemoaned by current IndyCar drivers at high-speed ovals — shrouded her final race in the series. Then IndyCar head Randy Bernard had offered a $5-million purse to a non-series regular who could win after starting from the rear of the field and Wheldon, racing a partial schedule as he prepared to replace Patrick at Andretti Autosport in 2012, was the only taker and allowed to split the bounty with a randomly chose fan. A larger-than-usual field and speed-producing track characteristics heightened risk made worse by driver behavior, Patrick said. “Drivers were very uncalculated. I was really nervous,” she said. “I don’t really get nervous like that before a race. Part of it was probably the last race I was doing. The other part was I knew if I was going to do well, I was going to have to take risks that I knew were not smart. And before the race, my dad was like, ‘Look, you’ve got nothing to prove. Drive like you drive.’ And he didn’t even know this was in my head. “And then, Lap 11 crossing the line, can’t even remember who it was — probably could if I thought hard — cut in front of me down the front straight. Went down into (Turn) 1 and that’s when the big accident happened and it killed Dan. And the car that cut in front of me got collected and I didn’t. And in my head I was like, ‘I know I should lift. I know he’s not going to think twice and so we’re going to do this.’ I know that’s stupid. Unfortunately, while Justin’s accident was definitely much more of a freak incident, there’s a lot of things about oval racing that’s not how it used to be when I first got into the series with drivers that were used to driving on the ovals. And probably the European mentality of blocking, cutting, swerving, you know, lack of respect kind of driving is what it felt like.” In NASCAR for the long haul, Patrick finalized her push into the next phase of her career on Friday with the announcement that her 2016 sponsor plank is complete with TaxAct extending its contract with agreement to three seasons and serving as primary sponsor in four races yearly beginning in 2016. Long-time benefactor GoDaddy’s decision to discontinue its sponsorship of Patrick left the driver seeking funding in a contract year, but she acquired new multi-year sponsor Nature’s Bakery (28 races) and saw Aspen Dental expands its role (four races) as replacements. She re-signed with SHR in August. Source: www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2015/10/30/danica-patrick-nascar-sprint-cup-115-starts-leaving-indycar/74887934/ NASCAR power couple has learned to lean on each other Through various on-track hardships, the NASCAR power couple of Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. have taken turns leaning on each other's shoulders. So far this year, Patrick's shoulder has been getting more use. Patrick, speaking Tuesday at a media event at Charlotte Motor Speedway, said that the two drivers -- both in their third full season in the Sprint Cup Series -- have agreed to celebrate their independent successes, something she's convinced is coming for Stenhouse's Roush Fenway Racing team. "I think every team goes through their ebbs and flows of good and bad, and you've got to figure them out and I know that his team is working on it," said Patrick, currently 15th in the series standings in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10 Chevrolet. "So by all means, I just reassure him that you never forget how to drive, you've just got to get the stuff underneath you that you need. I think Stewart-Haas is an example of what happens when you get better people and equipment underneath you. A couple of years, we couldn't hit our you-know-what with both hands, but now we're obviously the champions from last year as a team, so it takes hard work. "Even when you're not doing well, you're working hard and I've experienced that plenty of times in my career. It just means you haven't found it yet, but I'm sure they will. And then we'll have to worry about them." Stenhouse's most recent top-10 finish came last August at Bristol Motor Speedway, a dry spell that includes failing to qualify for last October's event at Talladega Superspeedway. The road has been just as tough this season for teammates Greg Biffle and Trevor Bayne in the Roush Fenway camp, with just one top-10 finish -- a 10th from Biffle in the Daytona 500 -- among the three. In the preseason, officials with the venerable NASCAR team weren't shy about the need to rebuild. After the team could do no better than Stenhouse's 27th-place qualifying effort last month at Auto Club Speedway, a frustrated Biffle minced no words, saying the organization was "dying a slow death." While Stenhouse seemed to be modestly righting the ship with a 12th place at Phoenix and a 15th at Auto Club, his race at the series' most recent stop at Martinsville Speedway brought involvement in three caution flags and a 40th-place finish for his RFR No. 17. In sharp contrast was Patrick's solid seventh-place run at Martinsville, one position below her career-best. "I would say that he's been in about as good of spirits as possible," Patrick said. "He had actually a good start to the year -- he qualified on speed from Daytona, so he was locked into the 500. From that point on, I decided that instead of me being upset with being 30th or whatever I was, I was like, we're going to celebrate the good days because I felt like that was the only complaint I had is that we don't usually have good days at the same time. So instead of celebrating one, we usually just step back and let the other person have their bad day, but I'm going to flip it this year -- and you know what, if I have a bad day and he has a good day, we're going to celebrate because the year just gets way too long when you just are down all the time. "I think he's done a good job with that and he continues to work hard. He believes what I believe in, that hard work pays off." Source: www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2015/4/8/danica-patrick-ricky-stenhouse-nascar-couple.html Kenny Wallace supports Patrick NI: Danica Patrick is coming off her fifth career top-10 finish, tying her with Janet Guthrie for the most ever in Cup by a woman. How would you assess her NASCAR career to this point? HERMAN: "My niece Chrissy Wallace is a good little race car driver and I got a special place in my heart for ladies that come into a male-dominated sport. My Mom always said dynamite comes in small packages. That Danica Patrick, I'm just a big fan of hers, because I appreciate her nerve. I never bought into these male chauvinists that said she don't deserve to be here. What in the world are they talking about? That girl is incredible." NI: Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Danica hasn't improved her points standing, finishing 27th and 28th in her first two full seasons, and takes a lot of criticism. Is any of it warranted? HERMAN: "No. None of it's warranted. Listen, I'm a big fan of hers for these reasons. Because she's in a male-dominated sport and she's doing it; because people talk so much crap about her and she just spits it back in their face; because she ran seventh at Martinsville, one of the toughest race tracks on the complete circuit; because she went to Atlanta, one of our fastest intermediate tracks and finished sixth. Lastly, because she's doing what history says cannot be done. Look how many girls have come into our sport and are already gone. She has lasted longer than any female athlete in the history of NASCAR, period.* I'm a big fan of resilience. That's probably the bottom line." *Editor's note: Patty Moise ran events in what is now known as the XFINITY Series from 1986 through 1998.* Danica rides momentum toward ZZ Top's Texas Danica Patrick emerged from behind the wheel of a 1957 Chevrolet on Tuesday afternoon at Charlotte Motor Speedway, chauffeuring two-thirds of classic rock superpower ZZ Top. It was a star-studded photo op, with Patrick flanked by bandleader Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill. What seemed to impress Patrick the most was her ability to navigate with the tricky "three on the tree" transmission on the bright-red Bel Air. Lately, she's been wheeling her NASCAR Sprint Cup Series ride pretty well, too. Patrick helped ZZ Top announce their role as the pre-race entertainment before the 56th annual Coca-Cola 600 on May 24. Though Patrick was two days shy of her first birthday when the group's best-selling "Eliminator" album first hit shelves in 1983, she said she was familiar with their rich portfolio of songs, owing in large part to her father T.J. and his love of classic rock. "'Legs'? I'm too short," said Patrick, when asked about favorite tunes. "But I do have long legs for my height." Patrick's buoyant mood wasn't merely attributed to hanging out with music royalty on an otherwise cloudy Tuesday afternoon, but her impressive seventh-place finish in the Sprint Cup tour's most recent race on March 29 at Martinsville Speedway. That momentum, plus a relaxing off-weekend spent in part attending a wedding for friends in Charleston, South Carolina, has her recharged for Saturday night's resumption of the schedule at Texas Motor Speedway. "It really felt like two weekends. So, feeling really good, really refreshed," said Patrick, nine races into her tenure with crew chief Daniel Knost. "Had a nice weekend, but really, just encouraged by the start of the season and how it's gone so far. … We've been to every style of track now, so I'm feeling confident in that and that we really only have up to go, based on how new our relationship is together as a driver and crew chief." Patrick acknowledged that the results haven't necessarily illustrated the performance boost for her Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10 Chevrolet, but that the driver/crew chief partnership with Knost is still in the early stages of taking hold. Martinsville produced potential strides and a seven-position bump to 15th in the series standings, but Texas and beyond will tell the tale of Patrick's third full season in NASCAR's big league. "Building good cars, using all the resources that we have at Stewart-Haas and just giving me cars that were good from the get-go as soon as we get to the race track," Patrick said. "Now I think that there is definitely plenty of room to improve on our communication that allows for a lot of good changes throughout the weekend. You're not always going to make the car better with everything that you do, but you need to do it throughout the weekend here and there. "Sometimes we're better at it than other times. That's still a work in progress, but the start setup has been really solid so far everywhere this year." Patrick did more than her part to promote not only her role in the Coca-Cola family of drivers, but also one of NASCAR's signature events. But at other stages of her motorsports career, the month of May meant something far different -- a chance to swig the winner's traditional milk in the Indianapolis 500. Though Patrick has kept open the possibility of attempting an Indy/Coke double, much like teammate Kurt Busch did last year and team owner/driver Tony Stewart accomplished before him, the further she gets away from IndyCar racing, the less appealing the opportunity is. "For two years, I thought 'let's try and do this' and it just didn't work out," Patrick said. "I'm comfortable, but for me it has a lot more to do with, I don't want to do the race just to do the race unless I'm able to feel like I have a chance to win then that's the only reason why I want to do it. And there's a lot of people who show up for the 500 that end up having a shot and doing really well, and I feel like I could, but the further I get away from those cars and driving them, the less I feel confident in that I would be able to do what I would feel like I need to do to win. "Every year I was there, I pretty much had a chance to win, and I don't want to do anything to take away from that." Though Charlotte Motor Speedway's annual festival of speed in May is just more than six weeks away, ZZ Top welcomed the chance for a 45-minute show just before their kicking off a 15-city European tour in June. Marcus Smith, CEO of track ownership group Speedway Motorsports, Inc., said choosing the group as the pre-race show wasn't the result of focus groups or other more scientific methods. "Because they're awesome, man. They're ZZ Top," Smith said. "They're legendary. This is the 56th running of the Coca-Cola and we wanted to go over the top, and I think ZZ Top is just one of the most iconic, classic rock American bands out there." When ZZ Top formed in Houston, Texas, in 1969, NASCAR had just begun its third decade of operation. That year's premier series schedule was 54 races long, still featured dirt tracks, and included a newly built Talladega Superspeedway in the wilds of Alabama. Pearson, Petty and Isaac ruled the season in cars with names like Cyclone, Torino and Charger Daytona. As NASCAR was poised to enter its so-called "modern era," ZZ Top also was developing its trademark blues-heavy rock and boogie sound. Though the band evolved from its hardscrabble origins, becoming a pop-friendly MTV darling during the peak of their commercial success in the 1980s before returning to its guitar-driven roots, their lineup has remained the same for 45 years. "There's one song that we started writing when we first got together as a group. It's yet to be finished," Gibbons said with a laugh. "Long, long time on that one." The band's ability to play to big rooms hasn't changed either, and the venues don't get much bigger than Charlotte Motor Speedway's 1.5-mile track. ZZ Top is no newcomer to NASCAR. The band played two pre-race shows in 2008, at Auto Club Speedway in March and a home-state appearance at Texas Motor Speedway in November. Given Gibbons' love of hot rods -- from the band's signature "Eliminator" '33 Ford to the custom '48 "CadZZilla" -- the stock-car pairing seems only natural. "They ask us many times what the connection between ZZ Top and the automobile is," Gibbons said. "We say, well, it's loud and fast, and that kind of makes sense." Source:  www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2015/4/7/danica-patrick-zz-top-pre-race-performers-coca-cola-600-sprint-cup-series.html Patrick appears in Jay-Z video Was that Danica Patrick driving a sports car at breakneck speed on the treacherous roads above Monaco? The IndyCar Series driver makes an appearance in a video for the new Jay-Z single "Show Me What You Got." The opening scene of the four-minute James Bond-inspired video shows Patrick racing against Jay-Z. The video, directed by F. Gary Gray, premiered Oct. 16 on MTV and is also featured in a new ad campaign for Budweiser Select. "Show Me What You Got" marks Jay-Z's first single from "Kingdom Come," his comeback CD scheduled to be available Nov. 23. "Getting a chance to appear in the new Jay-Z video was a pretty cool opportunity," Patrick said. "I have been a big Jay-Z fan for a long time and to be part of his comeback video is a thrill." Source: www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=236381&FS=IRL Schedule & Results 2015 Sprint Cup Series Race Stats Date Track Start Finish Laps Status Feb 14 Daytona Sprint Unlimited 15 10 75/75 Running Feb 19 Daytona Duels 15 10 64/64 Running Feb 22 Daytona 500 20 21 203/203 Running Mar 1 Atlanta 18 16 324/325 Running Mar 8 Las Vegas 21 27 264/267 Running Mar 15 Phoenix 23 26 312/312 Running Mar 22 Fontana ? 22 19 209/209 Running Mar 29 Martinsville 16 7 500/500 Running Apr 11 Texas 21 16 334/334 Running Apr 19 Bristol 26 9 511/511 Running Apr 26 Richmond 21 25 398/400 Running May 3 Talladega 25 21 188/188 Running May 9 Kansas 27 27 265/267 Running May 15 Charlotte Showdown 8 9 40/40 Running May 16 Charlotte All-Star Race 6 20 78/110 Running May 24 Charlotte 600 20 22 398/400 Running May 31 Dover 33 15 403/405 Running Jun 7 Pocono 22 37 153/160 Running Jun 14 Michigan 19 16 138/138 Running Jun 28 Sonoma 21 24 110/110 Running Jul 5 Daytona 27 35 126/161 Accident Jul 11 Kentucky 23 34 265/267 Running Jul 19 New Hampshire 20 24 300/301 Running Jul 26 Indianapolis 15 27 164/164 Running Aug 2 Pocono 16 20 160/160 Running Aug 9 Watkins Glen 22 17 90/90 Running Aug 16 Michigan 23 25 198/200 Running Aug 22 Bristol 32 27 495/500 Running Sep 6 Darlington 30 42 190/367 Accident Sep 12 Richmond 14 19 397/400 Running Sep 20 Chicago 25 26 264/267 Running Sep 27 New Hampshire 22 40 203/300 Accident Oct 4 Dover 24 21 398/400 Running Oct 11 Charlotte 24 19 333/334 Running Oct 16 Kansas 29 22 267/269 Running Oct 25 Talladelga 20 27 196/196 Running Nov 1 Martinsville 16 40 391/500 Accident Nov 8 Texas 11 16 334/334 Runnimg Nov 15 Phoenix 21 16 219/219 Running Nov 22 Homestead 35 24 266/267 Running Source: www.nascar.com/en_us/sprint-cup-series/standings/results/2015.html WomenInRacing.org ©1996-2023 by Gordon Clay