Danica Patrick Drives Like a Girl

Fast.  And expecting to win.

I was lucky to have been able to spend an hour with Patrick yesterday when she visited the National Press Club to talk about her transition from Indy Car racing to Nascar this week.

When I asked her whether it bothers her that a lot of the attention she gets is because she's a woman, she said no. "I'm a girl and that gets me a lot of attention,"she said and went on to refer to herself as a "girl driver" a "driver who's a girl" and "proud to be a girl."

She's 29, married, and she never used the word woman.


By the end of the lunch I was practically giggling to myself with glee over this.

I was happy because the word WOMAN sometimes feels so heavy and big and tiring.  But I'm not allowed to be a girl because, well, when I was a young adult they told me if someone called me a girl, they were belittling me.  If they called me a girl, they were suggesting I was weak, childish, silly.

Girl, apparently, was an insult.

Let me tell you, Danica Patrick is not weak, childish or silly.

She was supremely confident and humble, a combination that's hard to pull off at the same time. When we met, she thanked me for having enough confidence in her to invite her to speak at the Press Club. She spoke to fawning men, reporters, young girls and the CEO of Nascar with equal ease. She discussed her auto racing success, ticking off the races she's won, and the ones she intends to win. Standing in 4-inch heels that brought the top of her head to about my forehead, she took questions from all comers with ease and wit.

"What part of your body hurts the most after a race?"

"My ego," she responded without hesitation.

When someone asked if her GoDaddy.com commercials degraded her, she was not the least offended.  She told the story of when she went to race in Japan and her travel visa described her as an entertainer. Her brand, she explained, benefited from her racing and her other strengths -- including how great she looks in a bikini. She talked about the business side of racing, discussed the ROI of sponsorship deals and then joked that she'd slipped in a smart word.

Danica Patrick was far too focused on the real business of auto racing she couldn't be bothered to be burdened with the political correctness of calling herself a woman over a girl.  She lives in a world where girl is not an insult. It's who she is.

"My goal is not to be the best girl driver. My goal is to be the best driver," she told the crowd.

You go, girl.