Autosport Plus

Sweet Sixteen

All the ingredients are in place for Danica Patrick to make history this Sunday and become the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500. It will be the longest race of her career, but she is the first female with a real chance of making it into the highest echelon of the Boys' Club. Patrick has become arguably the biggest story so far in the 89th event, but where did the IRL rookie come from and how did she become the center of everyone's attention? Thomas O'Keefe, who discovered Patrick back in 2000, reviews her climb up the racing ladder

Thomas O'Keefe May 25, 2005, 12:36 PM

No car carrying the No. 16 has won the Indianapolis 500 since 1946, when George Robson did it in the Thorne Engineering Adams/Sparks 6 Special. But don't tell that to 23 year-old Danica Patrick, who drives the No. 16 Argent Mortgage Panoz-Honda for the Rahal Letterman Racing team, and who, as a 5 foot 1 inch, 100-pound woman, has been bucking the odds her entire life.

While most teenage girls spent their adolescence kibitzing with their girlfriends over clothes, cosmetics and each other while scheming to get attention from the boys, the pert and perky Patrick has been going the opposite direction: warding off the burdens of her sex and trying to fit in as one of the boys, just a racer like them, under her driver's helmet.