One Small Step...

During a break in qualifying at the Indianapolis 500, T.J. Patrick told an ESPN reporter that his daughter didn't come to Indy to start on the second row. Nope. She came to Indy to win the pole position. Bold call, but truthful. The reaction, of course, wasn't so kind. As if she knew the comment would become ammunition to be used against her, Danica Patrick had a ready answer. "My dad is a puller, not a pusher," she said later, restoring her father's dignity with one carefully rehearsed line.

This is Danica Patrick at her media-savvy best, extinguishing fires like a White House press secretary while feigning blase about her impact. She doesn't claim to be carrying the flag of a cause - hell, she wasn't even born until six years after Arlene Hiss and Janet Guthrie broke the gender barrier - but Danica Patrick is acutely aware of the implications of what she's doing and the commotion she's creating by doing it.

"That stuff is just a different side of me," she said, explaining the hype. "It's part marketing. I mean, it creates a stir and it brings attention to the sponsorship on the sides of the cars, (but) I think I have fun doing it. It's nothing more than a bit of fun and benefit for attention."

This just in: It worked. Dan Wheldon may have won the 89th Indianapolis 500, but - right or wrong - he wasn't the story that day in May. Instead, a 23-year-old woman from north of Rockford, Illinois, who spun, stalled and bumped her way to an improbable fourth-place finish had stolen the headlines. Dan Wheldon? Pffft. Katie Couric didn't want no Dan Wheldon. America's mainstream media machine wanted the woman, and she knew it. She had no control over this steamroller, but she knew where it was going and how to stay one step ahead of it.

As reporters ignored Vitor Meira (Remember him? He finished second while driving one-handed) to get to Patrick in the post-race press conference, she simultaneously felt guilty for the anonymity of her teammate while realizing and accepting the magnitude of Danicamania.

"I was your story," she proclaimed. It wasn't said with an air of arrogance. It was said with a sense of plain, simple honesty. She is our story.

On the first day that engines fired at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May, the steamroller of Patrick's story rumbled away from the blocks. She was fast from the start, leading rookie orientation and then recording the second-fastest lap on the second day of practice with the veterans.

When the momentum began to build, mentor Bobby Rahal stepped back and admired. This wasn't designed for CNN and the New York Times, but that's where it was headed, and Rahal saw the first glimmer that the story was going beyond the boundaries of auto racing when 20 cameras encircled his rookie driver after that first day at Indy.

Attention is never bad, especially when it's directed at someone who has the ability to mesh the story with the images. Her appeal to the mainstream was generated by three basic facts: a) she was attempting to make history; b) she could drive a race car; and c) she looked good doing it. Donald Trump couldn't hang with this reality show.

"We just have to protect her and make sure things are done in an organized fashion," Rahal said, watching his driver disappear behind cameras. "She knows that. She's always had a lot of pressure on her. The thing that's impressed me most about her is that she needs the pressure to excel. When it comes down to her needing a lap for qualifying, she does it. Some people tighten up; she doesn't. She handles pressure pretty well."

By the end of the month, she was a national sensation. In one day, during a tour of New York, she did interviews with 25 major media outlets in 18 hours. Major. Not the Rockford Register Star or even the Chicago Tribune, but CNN, Time, USA Today, NBC, CBS and ABC.

Drivers have spent their entire careers winning races and championships and never got a whiff of that kind of press, but along comes someone who hasn't won once and has only been in the majors for four races, and Good Morning Americaand People are elbowing each other just for a minute of her time.

Privately, the veterans grumbled. Publicly, they played along, knowing that a misstep in front of the steamroller could be dangerous. Just ask Robby Gordon, whose comments about Patrick's weight the day before the 500 - an issue almost every driver in the Indy field had discussed behind closed doors - suddenly turned him into the Vijay Singh of motorsports.

In the days following his victory, Wheldon answered nearly as many dim-bulb questions about Patrick as he answered about himself. The mainstream media had trouble with his name, let alone his victory. He cooperated, but the misdirection had to be aggravating.

"So, Don Wilson, you've won the Indy 500. Is Danica hot, or what?"

When asked immediately after the race if he knew he'd hijacked the story America wanted, Wheldon shot it right back. "Don't care one bit."

Wheldon may have hijacked the steamroller for a few minutes, but he didn't stop Danicamania. This beast had perpetual motion on its side. She hadn't won the 89th Indianapolis 500, but she wasn't exactly an abject failure, either. "This is just my fifth IRL race," she said. "I think I showed I was a rookie with some of the things that happened, but I think I showed that my on-track performance is all there."

All there or not, the on-track performance was anything but dull. She spun, stalled, screamed and apologized as ABC breathlessly ignored the race and focused on the steamroller. She bounced off Kosuke Matsuura and continued on. She spun on a restart, took out three cars, and kept going.

With 28 laps remaining, Rahal wryly left Patrick on the track as the leaders pitted, knowing that she didn't have the fuel to reach the finish line without a few yellow flags. She got them, and, while Wheldon, Meira and Bryan Herta were faster in the end, Patrick accomplished something no other female driver had accomplished. She led laps at the Indy 500. She finished fourth. She brought the crowd to its feet and to the top of its lungs. No denying it; she was the story, even if she pretended she didn't pay any attention to the attention.

"I'm just racing," she declared.

"I don't know. It sounds so goober stupid, but I just don't think about (the media reaction). I don't know why. I didn't even think all of the media stuff that was going on was all that overwhelming. I was getting overwhelmed with the lack of time I had for myself, but all the coverage? I was your story."

What the American public learned in May was something already considered common knowledge inside the walls of open-wheel racing: Danica Patrick can race. Perhaps that simple dichotomy - we knew this; they didn't - further fueled the steamroller. The gee-whiz coverage belied the fact that she's a well-seasoned, properly tutored race-car driver. Inside the walls, it was assumed everyone knew this. Outside the walls, it was clearly evident that nobody knew it. Until the Indy 500, anyway.

She may have made a point for herself, a point or two for the IRL, sold a few newspapers and magazines and moved a few points in the ratings. But did she make a point for womankind? Look out. Here comes the icy glare. "I made a hell of a point for anybody," she says. "Are you kidding me?"

Nobody's kidding anybody. Danica Patrick is a sensational story, and she knows it.

Now, so does everybody else.

Back in the Saddle

Kenny Brack proved a lot to himself

As the joke went, Kenny Brack was at home in Ohio sipping a margarita when the call came. Buddy Rice's injuries were worse than previously thought. Bad enough, in fact, that he wouldn't be allowed to race in the Indianapolis 500. Brack was being offered the ride, but he had to think about it.

"Kenny only drives fast," team co-owner Bobby Rahal joked.

Truth is, Brack is meticulous to the nth degree, often typing extensive postrace reports to engineers and team officials, noting every detail of the race and the machine. Nothing Kenny Brack does is done without serious, detached, logical thought.

That's why, when he agreed within hours to strap into the same monster in which he was seriously injured 19 months before, people wondered how seriously Brack had considered it. That answer also was quick. Very seriously.

"I made a quick decision," Brack said. "Obviously you can look at this many different ways, but in the end you've got to do what's in your heart, what you feel like doing. I believe this all happened for a reason. I don't know why."

In October 2003, Brack sustained severe injuries during a frightening crash at Texas. His crushed ankles were rebuilt with pins, one of which threatened to poke through the skin when he worked the pedals. He also recovered from a broken femur, sternum, and lower spinal and rib fractures.

Yet minutes after the engine was fired on the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Racing Panoz-Honda, Brack was doing laps at more than 220 mph at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He qualified in 23rd position on the second weekend with the best four-lap average in the field-227.598mph.

The race didn't go as well as Brack might have imagined in detail (he finished 26th after dropping out because of a steering problem) but his point had been made. He showed that he hadn't slowed down.

"I wanted to prove that I could still race," Brack said. "I think it showed the last couple of weeks."

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- The Autosport.com Team

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