Danica finds peace in finding herself

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�People tell me I�ve changed. Maybe I�m happy... There was always an element of me that felt like it had to do the right thing all the time. Now I feel like I want to be me� � Danica Patrick, who rebuilt her life off the track last year (CP)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- For so long, Danica Patrick was just a pretty girl in a fast car surrounded by a crack marketing staff who parlayed a few golden moments on the track into worldwide fame.

Her sexy Super Bowl ads and the revealing magazine shoots quickly outnumbered her actual career accomplishments. They still do, and she routinely takes Twitter broadsides from a fan base that has resented her since she first dabbled in NASCAR three years ago. Her fiercely competitive nature and desire to keep her personal life private created the perception she is cold, standoffish.

Patrick has never flinched, and she's not flinching now on the doorstep of the biggest moment of her NASCAR career. She learned long ago to not care what people think about her, to tune out the critics and plug away at her race craft and at building the Danica empire.

All of that should help her in the pressure cooker of Daytona this week. After all, she's used to the spotlight more than almost any driver in history.

She already has a major accomplishment to tuck in her belt: She is the first woman in history to win the pole at NASCAR's top level. That it came at the Daytona 500, "The Great American Race," is somehow fitting because it's Patrick. The face of auto racing to many casual fans is now going to be the face of NASCAR every day this week leading into Sunday's season-opener.

It comes during a rebirth for the 30-year-old Patrick.

Something shifted last season, when she realized a happy ending wasn't going to come in her seemingly picture-perfect life. All the effort and energy dedicated to maintaining Danicamania wasn't making her happy.

So she made significant life changes, splitting from her 47-year-old husband after seven years of marriage. In January came confirmation of what everyone in NASCAR already assumed -- she was dating fellow Sprint Cup rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr., a cowboy-hat wearing Mississippi native who takes her to Professional Bull Riding and gave her her own blinged-out cowgirl belt buckle.

Patrick came into the season with a new man, a new outlook on life and a determination to be happy on and off the track. Where that takes her is anyone's guess because Patrick, so certain all those years she was a race car driver and had no interest in having children, is suddenly murky on motherhood.

"I don't know. I always used to say no. Now, I don't know. I'm in a whole new situation now," she told The Associated Press.

Seemingly icy all those years, Patrick is suddenly an open book. She's done a total 180 and is putting herself out there much like a head-over-heels-in-love schoolgirl.

"People tell me I've changed. Maybe. I'm happy," she said. "You get kind of giddy about it, almost. Ricky and I like talking about each other. But life is just simpler now. I feel like I don't have to think as much. There was always an element of me that felt like I had to do the right thing all the time. Now I feel like I want to be me. I want to be relaxed, less calculated. My return on investment was not right, and I am done overthinking things."

Patrick may sound like she's suddenly found herself, but there's still a ton she hasn't figured out. She doesn't know how long she wants to race, but says she could see herself in NASCAR another 10 years.

If there's anything she would do over, Patrick isn't saying.

"I say that I learned an incredible amount in my 20s about everything, and about myself came at the end," she said. "I learned a lot about people, relationships, business, employees. I enjoyed it all, and I learned a lot.

"But I think it took me all the way until the last year how happy it makes me to be able to be myself, and how much I like myself. And you know, you take it or leave it. That's it. This is me, people can take it or leave it."

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 19, 2013 C13