MILWAUKEE — Danica Patrick is consistently running near the front this season, and with every top-five finish she is distancing herself from the drama that seemed to swirl around her early in her IndyCar career.
And, perhaps, moving a step closer to NASCAR.
Patrick finished fifth at the Milwaukee Mile on Sunday, her fourth straight top-five, and is fourth in the series points standings going into Saturday night’s race at Texas Motor Speedway. And her streak of strong finishes has been delightfully devoid of drama — a sign, she says, that she no longer feels she must make a scene when things go wrong just to prove that she cares about winning.
“I’ve always been just pretty honest with my emotions, sometimes to a fault,” Patrick said. “But like I said, I’m learning all the time. And I think a lot of that came from wanting to achieve wins and place high in the race and when somebody prevented that, there’s always so much pressure.”
Then Patrick pauses to reconsider her use of the word “pressure.”
“Maybe not so much pressure, because I’ve never really acknowledged that being a problem,” she said. “But there’s always so many people watching, and you just want to do well. And so I would always get so mad when (adversity) happened. But I think nowadays it’s just like, if you don’t think I can race, and if you really don’t see it, then I can’t really help you anymore. I’m not going to show you that I want more by being mad.”
Patrick, who trails championship leader Scott Dixon by 22 points going into Saturday night’s race, certainly has the attention of fellow drivers.
“She’s doing a fantastic job,” Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves said. “She deserves it. She’s doing very well. A contender? I think every top-five (driver) is a contender.”
But just as Patrick seems to be hitting her stride as a consistently competitive driver, could she be on her way out of IndyCar?
Patrick’s existing contract with Andretti-Green Racing is up at the end of this season. Under the terms of the deal, she can begin fielding offers from other teams this week. And yes, if NASCAR comes calling, Patrick will listen.
“We can start exploring our options with all kinds of different things, whether it be who I’m with now or NASCAR,” she said. “We’re going to evaluate all the options. At this point in time, we don’t really have much information. But we’re going to evaluate all the options for sure.”
Patrick said her decision will be guided by an inner circle that includes a pair of high-profile agents from IMG — Mark Steinberg, who is Tiger Woods’ agent, and Alan Zucker.
“I’ve over the years established a great group of people that look after that sort of thing,” Patrick said. “The best thing that I can do for a contract year, or anything in my career at all, is to go out there and kick butt and win races.”
At the same time, she’s striving to be disciplined on the track, putting past high-profile run-ins with drivers such as Dan Wheldon, Ryan Briscoe and Milka Duno in the past.
Patrick’s newfound maturity isn’t airtight; she caused a stir last week for her comments in an interview with Sports Illustrated. In response to a question about whether she hypothetically would take a performance-enhancing drug that would allow her to win the Indianapolis 500 and not get caught, Patrick said, “Well, then it’s not cheating, is it? If nobody finds out?”
Patrick said in an interview with USA Today that her comments were meant as a joke and apologized if they came across differently. But U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart called Patrick’s comments “totally irresponsible,” noting her obligations as a role model.
That episode aside, Patrick has mostly flown under the media radar this season. She finished third in the Indianapolis 500 last month — the best Indy finish ever by a woman, beating her previous best by one position — but it wasn’t hyped up the way her fourth-place finish in 2005 was.
Certainly that had something to do with the fact that the race was won by Castroneves, a pop icon in his own right.
But the lack of hype surrounding Patrick’s good Indy finish could also be a sign that people are beginning to consider her a good driver, not just a novelty.
“You know, I think that’s good,” she said. “I think that that shows (the reaction) wasn’t, ‘Oh my gosh, we’d better celebrate this third because she totally lucked into this.’ Or like, ‘Thank goodness, we might not be able to get the publicity from this great finish from her again.’ They believe it’s going to happen again. At least that’s the message I get from people not making a big deal out of it. Which I think is great.”
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