The career of Danika Patrick

Danika has recently retired from professional racing, but not before leaving a powerful legacy. While she had greater on-track success in the IndyCar series as well as the Formula Ford Championships in Europe, she expanded her already rich career with a permanent to NASCAR sprint in 2013 with Stewart-Haas Racing. Although she never won a NASCAR race, she held a Daytona 500 pole position and lead several laps. Danika was a rare sportswoman and one of the few to enter one of the most male-dominated sporting fields. While being a fierce competitor, she was even more successful at making NASCAR a self-marketing mechanism and vehicle for promoting women in motorsport. Patrick has probably profited more from the endorsements and media presence than any other NASCAR driver. She has set numerous female first records, but her real legacy is how she altered the sport's male preserve and used her own dynamics as a personality and driver to profit in many ways from the publicity.