INDIANAPOLIS – So it’s come to this now for Danica Patrick: Submarine questions.
“Danica, this question is kind of from left field,” came the question this month, awkwardly, from left field. “But the Navy’s … going to put women in submarines for the first time. How do you feel about that, you know, breaking another all-male …”
“This isn’t even a field,” Patrick interrupted. “This is deep in the ocean.”
And then: “I didn’t even know that was happening, but I guess that’s good. Like I have always said, there’s lots of men and women crossing over into stereotypical gender areas all over the place, and that’s just another one.”
And maybe someday, it’ll be no bigger a deal than it has become for Patrick and the other women who regularly climb into Indy cars, turn left and commence hurtling around at 225 mph.
Five women now do that regularly on the IndyCar circuit, and a record four of them – Patrick, Sarah Fisher, Ana Beatriz and Simona de Silvestro – will answer the green Sunday. It is, everyone seems to agree, a significant moment for the sport.
“I think the fact we have (four) women in the race creates a tremendous interest by many people – people who might not have been interested in our sport,” Roger Penske says.
And yet, for the women, it seems less a statement than the final proof that all the statements have been made.
“Being a female and being part of a class of five?” says Sarah Fisher, who’ll be making her ninth start at Indy on Sunday. “It’s very unique, and it’s something for me to talk about – tomorrow.”
Truth is, none of the Fab Five, which includes Milka Duno who failed to qualify for Indy, really sees herself as a pioneer, questions about women submariners notwithstanding. They see themselves as racers, holding no more unique a bond with one another than they do with other drivers on the circuit.
“I’ve met Simona and Ana, and they both are really nice,” Patrick says. “They both have talent. If they asked me a question, I would answer it. But I guess it wouldn’t be normal for any driver to go to another driver and ask for advice.”
Not that either Beatriz or de Silvestro would necessarily be seeking Patrick out, anyway. Beatriz will tell you that, growing up in Brazil, she idolized Brazilian icons Ayrton Senna and Emerson Fittipaldi, not Fisher or Patrick.
And while de Silvestro recognizes the significance of five women competing in IndyCar, it’s not something she dwells on.
“I think for sure being five, it’s much more than it was,” de Silvestro says. “I think Danica did a good job the last couple years of running up front, and I think if a woman can run up front we’re respected. I think for sure the door’s a little more open now. But that’s not my goal. I think my goal is to be here against all the 33 drivers.”
She has, she says, met Janet Guthrie and Lyn St. James, the true pioneers of women at Indy, and appreciates what they did as “really special.” Of far more relevance, however, is that when she comes to the green Sunday, she’ll be the first Swiss driver since Clay Regazzoni in 1977 to race in the Indianapolis 500.
“It’s funny,” she says. “My first video I got was an IndyCar game, and the Indy 500 was on it. But that came later. In the beginning, Indianapolis wasn’t really on the radar. Growing up in Europe, Formula One is always the thing.”
Now, of course, Indy is the thing – as it is for Beatriz, who jumped onto the radar at Nashville in 2008, when she became the first woman to win a Firestone Indy Lights race. As it is, of course, for Patrick and Fisher, who qualified the fastest of all four women.
“I’ll do it again if I have to,” she said. “Either crash it or put it in the show, one way or another.”
Like anyone else.
