You may now know Danica Patrick as the GoDaddy’s front woman or have seen her on television with commercial endorsements. But, in 2008 the then 26-year-old achieved victory in the Indy Japan 300 at the Twin Ring Motegi motorsport racetrack. The facility has two racetracks [hence its name] on its premises built by Honda in attempts to bring the IndyCar series to Japan.
As a young child, Danica Patrick fell in love with racing and moved to England from Wisconsin to gain better training opportunities. The first race team Patrick drove for was the Rahal Letterman Racing Team in the United States. Yes, Letterman, as in former late night talk show host David Letterman.
It wasn’t until 2005 when Patrick made her IndyCar 500 debut. She was the fourth woman ever to compete. Janet Guthrie was the first driver to break the gender barrier at the Indy 500 in 1977.
Janet Guthrie