More Girls Who Rocked the World

Danica Patrick

1982– RACE CAR DRIVER UNITED STATES

I was brought up to be the fastest driver, not the fastest girl.

—DANICA PATRICK

Danica adjusted her helmet. Her hair, crammed inside it, was making her itch. She revved her engine and looked through her visor at her dad. He was standing at the starting line he’d drawn across the asphalt of the parking lot.

“On your marks, get set . . . go!” he yelled.

Danica stomped on the gas pedal and the go-kart her dad had built flew into action. What a rush! She’d never raced before, never even driven a go-kart. But from that first moment, ten-year-old Danica loved the feel of it—all that power in her hands.

Her tiny car flew down the straightaway of the track they’d made out of cans and bottles. As she entered the first turn, she lifted her foot off the gas and rotated the steering wheel carefully as the car drifted slightly to the outside, and then she accelerated again at the end of the turn. Perfect!

Another straightaway. Danica picked up speed until her go-kart was going twenty miles per hour. It feels so fast! she mused.

As she neared the second turn, she pushed the brake. Nothing. The go-kart didn’t slow at all.

The brakes don’t work! she thought in a panic.

Suddenly, she saw a concrete wall rushing toward her. She pumped the brakes over and over, trying to slow down . . .

CRASH!

The go-kart slammed into the wall and flipped over, trapping Danica beneath it.

Danica’s father sprinted over and pulled her from the wreck. The go-kart was totaled. He yanked off her parka, which had caught fire on the hot muffler.

“Are you okay?” he asked, checking her for injuries, terrified he’d almost killed her on her very first time driving.

But Danica was grinning from ear to ear. She was ready to go again!

From that moment on, Danica was hooked on racing. She probably inherited that passion from her parents, who met at a snowmobile race. Her dad was a snowmobile racer and her mom was a mechanic. Danica’s family had a serious need for speed.

Danica had an unusual Wisconsin childhood. While she did more traditional sports like baseball, basketball, volleyball, and cheerleading, her fascination with cars started early and quickly eclipsed her other interests. She spent hours and hours watching her dad race (snowmobiles, motocross, midget cars) and watching him tinker with race cars. “Thanks to him,” she said, “I grew up thinking about things most other ten-year-old girls aren’t even aware of, such as rpms.”1 (“Rpm” stands for revolutions per minute, which measures how quickly a car engine fires. The higher the rpm, the faster the car.)

When Danica was ten, her dad built go-karts for her and her sister. Danica loved racing from the very start, even after she crashed on her first day. They set up a race course made of paint cans in the parking lot of the family business, and Danica devoted herself to becoming the best. “After four or five weeks, Danica was really picking it up,” her dad remembered. “I’d been around racing my whole life, and I knew she was different. She instinctively understood what to do.”2

Danica had found her calling. The first year she raced, she broke the record at the local go-kart track, Sugar River Raceway. At thirteen, she begged her family to move to California so she could race year-round. They said no but began flying her west to compete in races. Soon, she was winning races all over the country; in her five years of go-kart racing, she won the World Karting Association Grand National championship three times!

At age sixteen, Danica made a decision that changed her life. She wanted to become a race car driver, but she couldn’t do that at home. When she got invited to train and race real cars in England, at the world’s top training facility for rookies, she dropped out of high school, left friends and family behind, and moved to a country where she didn’t know a soul. It was hard and Danica was homesick, but she got the training and experience she needed. She raced in England for four years, turning heads in the year 2000 when she finished second in the prestigious Formula Ford Festival. It was the best finish ever for an American—male or female!

That’s when eighteen-year-old Danica’s career went into overdrive. Race car champ and Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal invited her back to the States to drive for his team, Rahal Letterman Racing (co-owned by David Letterman), and she began competing in the Indy Racing League (IRL). Finally, she was a professional race car driver! And she raced well for the team, earning herself a spot in the 2005 Indy 500. The race is one of America’s most famous car events—five hundred miles driven in two hundred laps by thirty-three drivers.

At just twenty-three, Danica was young—a complete rookie. She was also the only woman in the race and just the fourth woman ever to compete in it. Interest in Danica drew thousands more viewers to watch the race that year, and media coverage was intense. It was a lot of pressure for young Danica, but she showed everyone that she deserved to be there. During practice, she had the fastest speed of all the drivers, reaching 229.880 miles per hour, and the fourth-fastest qualifying time.4

Due to her strong qualifying time, Danica started the race in the fourth position. Then, in lap fifty-seven, Danica surprised everyone and flew ahead into first place—the first time a woman had ever done so in the Indy 500! She remained in first place, off and on, for much of the race. Near the end, her car ran low on gas so she had to slow down to avoid running out entirely. In her first Indy 500 race, Danica took fourth place—the best-ever finish for a woman. She was also the first woman to ever take the lead in the race for not just one but nineteen laps!⁵ It was a historic, record-breaking race that made Danica a star of the racing world.

In 2007, Danica switched teams to Andretti Green Racing, and a year after that, she took first place in the Indy Japan 300 (another IRL race, like the Indy 500), making her the first female winner in IRL history.

Danica continues to improve as a driver, year after year. During her time in the IRL, she consistently finished in the top ten. In 2009, she bested her earlier Indy 500 finish by coming in third. In 2011, she switched to racing much heavier stock cars in the more popular NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing) league. That same year, she finished fourth in a Las Vegas NASCAR race, the highest finish for any female racer. And she’s gotten better and better since then, working her way again to the front of the pack. As of 2013, she was the fastest woman ever to race NASCAR. But that’s not good enough for Danica. She won’t be satisfied until she’s the best NASCAR racer. Period.

Like other world-class athletes, Danica is in high demand for ads and product sponsorships. But what’s most important to her is being a role model for girls who want to break into the male-dominated sport of car racing. More girls than ever are competing in go-karting, and Danica is their hero. Lyn St. James, the first woman to race in the Indy 500 and Danica’s mentor, said, “Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of all young kids racing today are girls. Danica’s victory is so empowering to them.”⁷

Danica Patrick chose a path rarely taken by girls. She’s had to work hard and fight to be successful and earn respect on that path. Today, she wants all kids to find their own unique path: “I try to encourage kids to embrace what’s different about them. In the end, what makes you valuable . . . is what’s different about you.”⁸

HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?

I’m going to rock the world by becoming an Olympic athlete in track and field. Right now, I run the 100, 200, and relays, and I do high jump, long jump, and pole vault. Last year, I made it to districts. I plan to donate a percentage of my track earnings to cancer research. My mom had leukemia when I was six years old, so I have a soft spot in my heart for families who are going through cancer. I hope that someday I can help find a cure.

HANIA HALVERSON AGE 12