The Lady Has a Chance

By Shav Glick

May 19, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

INDIANAPOLIS —

Ever since Janet Guthrie became the first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 1977, the story line for women at Indianapolis Motor Speedway has been how she, Lyn St. James and Sarah Fisher made the starting field -- not about their chances to win.

Danica Patrick has changed that.

America’s newest racing find, a 23-year-old rookie driver from Roscoe, Ill., earned her place among the favorites for the May 29 race last Sunday when she qualified fourth -- and came within a bobble of winning the pole for the 89th running of the 500.

She might seem too tiny -- barely 5 feet 2 and 100 pounds -- but she knows how to control a 650-horsepower machine at speeds up to 230 mph around a 2 1/2 -mile race track as well as any man here.

She will start fourth in the 500, right behind pole-sitter Tony Kanaan, last year’s Indy Racing League champion, but in her mind she should be on the pole. A sideways twitch in one of former winner Bobby Rahal’s cars as she entered the first turn of a four-lap qualifying attempt made the difference between her time of 2 minutes 38.5875 seconds and Kanaan’s 2:38.1961 for 10 miles.

“I am disappointed because I know I had a car capable of winning the pole and I didn’t because I drove it too hard into the corner and it stepped out on me,” she said. “I shouldn’t be mad, being on the second row, but I am.

“I was the fastest car on track in the morning warmup and I really wanted to be on the pole.”

Before qualifying, Patrick ran a practice lap of 229.880 mph, the fastest ever turned by a woman at Indianapolis.

So, for the first time, a woman is here with all the right credentials -- talent, racing background, championship-team support, confidence and fearlessness.

Guthrie and St. James were both over 40 when they made the 500 and never were serious contenders. Fisher was even younger than Patrick when she qualified in 2000 but had been rushed into the IRL without the preparation that has benefited Patrick. Fisher was 19, with only a sprint car background, and never had a ride with a contending team.

Patrick, on the other hand, is with a top-tier team, one that won last year with Buddy Rice, and she doesn’t mind being one of the guys.

“I’ve been racing for 13 years and all the time it was against males, so being the only woman in the 500 is really nothing new to me,” Patrick said. “Besides, I do not think of myself as a woman driver. I am just another Indy car driver out there. We are all the same when we are sitting behind the wheel.”

She has been preparing for this since she was in the fifth grade back home in Roscoe, a north-central Illinois town of about 6,000 just north of Rockford.

“It has been my dream since I started racing karts when I was 10 to race in the Indianapolis 500 and now I’m here and I want to make the most of it,” she said.

That goal has been fed by continued success, in karts, two years of highly competitive formula car racing in England, and three years of working her way toward Indy cars under the watchful eye of Rahal, winner of the 1986 Indy 500 and three Indy car championships.

In only her fourth Indy Racing League race two weeks ago in Japan, Patrick started from the front row and finished fourth. During rookie orientation last week, she was fastest from the first day, faster even than Sebastien Bourdais, the Champ Car series champion, and Patrick Carpentier, a veteran of eight Champ Car seasons.

“I may have less experience than a lot of them, but I have the advantage of having last year’s winning team behind me,” she said. “That is a great advantage for a rookie driver.”

Rahal, who first saw her racing in England in 2000, says she is, as racers say, “the real thing.”

“Don’t let that sweet little smile and that long black hair fool you,” he warned. “When she has her driving suit on, before she pulls on her gloves, the only time I think of her as a young lady is when I see her pink fingernails. When the gloves go on, she’s a racer.”

Rahal was asked if his protege was moving too fast too soon.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “We have been methodical in her approach to everything here, and she’s been methodically going through it, through the setup changes, and has been very focused. I keep telling her, ‘Just stay focused, stay quiet, and just keep thinking about what you’re doing,’ and she’s doing that, obviously very well.”

Other drivers, the ones who might be running side by side with her at frightening speeds, speak highly of her attitude and ability.

Said Tomas Scheckter, the South African whose father Jody was a Formula One champion: “She’s done an unbelievable job. It’s great. She’s got her head screwed on straight, no doubt about it. This place really takes a couple of deep breaths to get around here quick, and Danica’s really done a super job as a rookie.

“She’s got great schooling. She’s been around Europe for a while and I watched her there. Plus, hopefully in a press conference, she’s a little bit cuter to sit next to than Tony Kanaan. Really, she’s done a great job and I take my hat off to her.”

Said teammate Vitor Meira, after hearing Rahal say Patrick was in a learning stage: “If she is still a student, I can’t imagine what she’ll be like when she graduates.”

At times, though, Patrick thinks about how fast she is traveling these days.

“Those speeds are pretty darn fast,” she said. “I thought to myself in the car the other day, ‘I’ve got to make sure that these are just numbers in my head and I don’t start thinking about how fast we’re going.’ For the most part it doesn’t feel all that fast. I don’t feel like I’m going over 200. It might feel like 150. Maybe it’s because everybody’s going about the same speed, same direction. Like a highway.”

Since she took her first ride in her sister Brooke’s kart when she was 10, Patrick has been on an upward curve. Two years later she won a national points race. At 14, she won 39 of 49 feature races, leading to World Karting Assn.’s Manufacturers Cup titles in two classes.

Her successes were noticed by St. James, whose seven appearances in the 500 are the most for a woman driver. St. James by then had dedicated herself to finding young female racers who showed promise. St. James invited the 14-year-old to Indy for the 500.

“She took me up to a suite in the second turn and we got to talking about racing in England with a couple of young men, one was from over there,” Patrick said. “One of them knew a team owner and two years later I got a call, asking me if I would like to come race in England.

“Well, as bad as I wanted to be a race car driver, there was no way I was going to cheat myself out of a chance like that. I was a junior in high school at the time, but my parents liked my idea so I went. It was just a case of me being in the right place at the right time that day that Lyn took me up to the suite with her.”

Patrick’s mother, Bev, has an easy answer as to how she let her little girl move to England when she was only 16.

“If you want to be the best lawyer, you go to Harvard, and if you want to be the best driver, you go to England,” she said.

In 2000, Danica finished second at the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch, England, and earned the Gorsline Scholarship award for the top up-and-coming road-race driver. She also caught the eye of Rahal, who was in Europe, preparing to take over the Jaguar Formula One team.

When the F1 job fell through and Rahal returned to the States to build a team with late-night host David Letterman, one of his first decisions was to sign Patrick to a multiyear contract. After five races in the Barber-Dodge Pro Series in 2002, she moved into the Toyota Atlantic circuit, where last season she finished third and was the only driver to complete every lap in 12 races.

Between now and race day, Patrick will be working with full fuel loads in her Argent Pioneer car, driving in traffic conditions. And anyone looking for her when she’s not on the track won’t have to look hard. She’ll be in the midst of the crowd of television cameramen, reporters, autograph seekers and race fans who can’t get enough of her.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Women drivers

Women who have raced in the Indianapolis 500:

JANET GUTHRIE

* Indianapolis 500 starts: 3 (1977-79)

* Best Indianapolis 500 start: 14th in 1979

* Best Indianapolis 500 finish: 9th in 1978

* Indianapolis 500 earnings: $58,792

LYN ST. JAMES

* Indianapolis 500 starts: 7 (1992-97, 2000)

* Best Indianapolis 500 start: 6th in 1994

* Best Indianapolis 500 finish: 11th in 1992