INDYCAR: Q&A with Danica Patrick

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Q&A with Danica Patrick

Motegi winner meets the media on her arrival in Kansas for this weekend’s race.

Kevin Krefting | Posted April 25, 2008 Kansas City, Kan.

Danica Patrick was still on Cloud 9 on arrival in Kansas, but soon will be back to business as usual (Ron McQueeney/IndyCar photo)

THE MODERATOR: We’re joined by Danica Patrick, winner of last week’s Indy Japan 300 in Motegi, Japan. It’s been a whirlwind since we left you. You flew out of Japan a few hours earlier than was originally planned, and now here we are back in the comfort of a racetrack at a place where you won a pole a few years back.

DP: Yeah, first pole here.

Q: Tell us about your week and what you’re looking for here in Kansas this week.

DP: Yeah, it was an exciting week. It was a lot of fun. You know, I never mind doing a lot of those live shows and talking to people like David Letterman. It’s not a bad gig.

But we wanted to make the most of this event for everybody, for the team, for the sponsors, like Motorola, and for just the league and everybody. You know, this is something that had a lot of avenues of benefits.

I went and worked my butt off for a week. I feel pretty good, though. I think that everything happens for a reason, and if this would have come three years ago on the heels of Indy or something like that, you know, maybe I wouldn’t have been so calm and prepared, prepared all around, from my standpoint and from the media and publicity standpoint. I try and find reason for everything. It was a good week.

But I’m excited to be in Kansas. Hopefully we get some practice in so we can get ourselves a good race car, and you’re only as good as your last race, so I’m starting from scratch here.

THE MODERATOR: We’ll open it up to questions.

Q: Danica, after all this week, and as you’ve said, you enjoyed it, but are you really looking forward to getting back in the racecar?

DP: As much as I would have if I didn’t have it. This is the primary and this is the reason why I did all those interviews is because I did well in a race and did my job well. So you know, I understand what fuels this whole machine, so that’s exciting, as well as just driving. That’s what I love to do.

So long as I kept my energy this week, everything was going to be okay, and I did, and I feel good.

Q: You’ve been in the media spotlight ever since 2005. How much of that, being used to that, did it help you go through the week that you just went through?

DP: Yeah, good question. I think that that’s definitely what I was talking about when I said that I think everything happens for a reason. We learned a lot from 2005 on, because it didn’t go away after 2005, but we sure learned how to manage it and make the most of it. I learned how I like to deal with all these situations best, and we got good people surrounding me over the last couple of years.

So I think that, again, we learned a lot. It’s not like we couldn’t have handled it, but I think at this point in time, just having hired a publicist over the winter and having had some time to think about what we wanted to do with the first win, gave us the best opportunity to go out and make the most of the event.

Q: Danica, your victory, the unification, Graham Rahal’s victory, can you talk a little bit about how all those things are giving a bump to the series?

DP: I think that you could ask anybody that probably. I think that there have been so many good things from the wintertime on with the merger and with Graham and me and just having more cars in general I think has been a good thing for the series.

All these things help. I don’t think I’m the only one that can answer that question.

Q: I guess this is probably impossible to tell, at this point anyway, but do you feel like you’re over the hump, that wins can come now, not necessarily in bunches, but you’ve got some momentum now?

DP: I could deal with the bunches (laughter).

I think one of the things that was always hanging and lurking in the back of my mind, or the front or whatever, is out of the way. But I think that I really see this whole process as just going up, you know? I like what it’s done more for the championship standings and just for morale and for everything. There’s just been a lot of good things that have happened for it.

I’m hoping, and I think that it’s up from here. I think that if there was a little bump along the way going up the hill, that was one of them.

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