Name: Danica Patrick
Age: 23
Hometown: Roscoe, Illinois
Currently: Indy Car Driver
Back in 1977 Janet Guthrie became the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500. This year Danica Patrick - born five years after Guthrie's first appearance at the Brickyard - becomes the latest. And of all the women who've run in the Memorial Day classic, Danica goes in with the best shot to actually win it.
"When I was a kid," Danica recalls, "I'd watch the Indy 500 for 50 laps or so and fall asleep. Then I'd wake up for the last 20." In fact, Danica claims to have never really been a racing fan because, by nature she says, she's a natural born participant. "The family would always go when my dad raced motocross, and snowmobiles and midgets," she says, "It was a matter of spending time with the family. Eventually my sister and I tried go karting. She quit after two races. My mom did it for a little while with me. It was just a family thing. Then as I became serious, my mom said 'I'm done. You're keeping us busy enough.'"
Danica Patrick was 10 when she started racing karts competitively and won her first World Karting Association championship at 12. From there it's been a steady march through the ranks of open wheel racing. In 2000 she met Indy legend Bobby Rahal while racing at Elkhart Lake in Wisconsin and struck up a friendship that endured while both were based in England - she as a driver in the Zetek Formula Ford Championship and he as the head of Jaguar's Formula One team. When both returned to America, Rahal signed her to a contract to race in the Toyota Atlantic Series. "He went out on a limb and started a team when there was no funding," Danica says with appreciation in her voice. She finished sixth in the 2003 Atlantic championship, improved to third in the 2004 championship while taking her first pole along the way, and somehow found time to host Spike TV's weekend "Power Block" along the way. For 2005, Rahal is elevating her to the IRL.
Rahal Letterman Racing is one of the IRL's best run and best financed teams - Danica is driving alongside teammates Buddy Rice (the 2004 Indy 500 winner) and Vittor Meira in G-Force chassis with the dominating Honda V-8 behind them. Isn't this a bit overwhelming for Danica? "Sometimes I get a little nervous," she says, "But I'm never intimidated."