April 20, 2008: Move over, men. The woman is coming through. Danica Patrick is making waves in the patriarchal dominion that is car racing. She has already scripted a gender first by leading 19 laps of the 2005 Indianapolis 500, the zenith of her breakthrough campaign that earns her the Rookie of the Year award for the IndyCar series. With multiple top-10 finishes and a taste of podium success in qualifying, Patrick has emerged from the rubble of the mid-card to establish herself as a premium driver. But, in spite of her terrific performances, the crowning glory remains elusive. Danica Patrick is yet to win a race in IndyCar, and the next stop is the third round of the 2008 championships — the Twin Ring Motegi in Japan.

Untimely omens

Patrick is in a rich vein of form, having bagged consecutive top-10 finishes in the first two races of the season in Florida and St. Petersburg. But the conditions in the latest venue are treacherous. Torrential rain leads to water seeping on the track and the race is delayed by 22 hours. Qualifying is cancelled, and the field is determined by drivers’ points in the current standings.

Patrick is slated to begin in sixth place for Andretti Green Racing, with the Brazilian Helio Castroneves of Penske Racing leading the pack. Among the 18 drivers competing on the day, Patrick is the solitary female. Two hundred laps await the racers, with close to 500 kilometres required to be covered in order to see the chequered flag.

In a long race such as this, fuel conservation is as crucial as speed, a fact Patrick is acutely aware of, having been denied glory on previous occasions for reaching the breaking point too soon. Without making a spectacular start, Patrick keeps herself in the hunt, driving with her characteristic equanimity. She is not threatening to take the lead herself, but is keeping the front runners in check, not allowing the race to get ahead of her. At 26 years of age, the American is well-versed with balancing the uncertainties of a race, where precarious pitfalls, like in life, can come out of nowhere. Patrick chooses to make her final pit stop on lap 148, taking a calculated gamble in the process. She knows that for the rest of the race, she has to juggle caution and aggression if she is to stand a chance of securing a top-three position. But, with less than a dozen laps to go, Patrick is overpowered by the fresher tiers of those behind her. On lap 189, Patrick falls to eighth place, with a victory fast slipping out of sight.

'This is fabulous'

Patrick is out of contention for the win as the final stretch begins. But there seems to be a twist in the tail. Race leader Scott Dixon is forced to pit with five laps left, and Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan, two other front-runners, follow suit a lap later. Patrick takes full advantage of the situation, passing Helio Castroneves fair and square on lap 195, before taking leadership of the race for the very first time with two laps remaining.

The stars have aligned in favour of Patrick, who must maintain her composure to see her lead through. With nerves jangling for her team, Patrick keeps her head and sails past the finish line to insert a new page in the sporting history books. Danica Patrick has achieved what no woman has done before, and stands atop the podium to mark the dawn of an era that testifies to the fact that women have finally caught up in the race where they had conceded a head start of several decades. Patrick’s monumental win is the perfect reply to the naysayers who dismissed female drivers as a sideshow in the spectacle of gilt-edged, cut-throat competition.

Understandably jubilant, Patrick takes in the enormity of the occasion, and is quick to commend her team for their contribution, before exclaiming, “It’s a long time coming... I couldn’t believe it. This is fabulous.”

Straddling identities

Since winning her first and only IndyCar race 12 years ago, Patrick has gone on to become the most successful and commercially enriched female driver on the planet. She retired in 2018, after a career that saw her perennially hog the limelight, with her driving credentials complementing her persona of a glamorous athlete not shy of the camera or the glare of popular culture. Not one for maintaining a sanitised profile, Patrick has been embroiled in several controversies and continues to be a polarising figure in modern sport. But no matter the choices she makes to cement her status as an outlier, her IndyCar victory will always be her defining contribution to a world where she moved from the periphery — through her pioneering moment — to become front and centre.