Patrick showing drive to improve

When Danica Patrick gets fire in her eyes, look out.\nLast Sunday at the Milwaukee Mile, she had run-ins with Dan Wheldon both on the track and off.\nThe Indy Racing League called the on-track incident in which the two bumped wheels, sending Patrick on a wild ride through the grass, “nothing more than a racing incident,” and handed out no penalties.\nIn the heated aftermath, Patrick said she thought she had made the pass, while Wheldon said he was still in front and had the right of way.\nPatrick, the third-year IndyCar Series driver, and Wheldon, the 2005 Indy 500 winner and series champion, had another very public meeting after the race.\nShe caught up to Wheldon on pit road and, in front of a roaring crowd that appeared heavily in her corner, grabbed the Englishman around the waist, did most of the talking and, when she didn’t get the answer she desirsed from him, gave Wheldon a light push and walked away.\nAfterward, Wheldon suggested Patrick is feeling the pressure of not having won yet and warned, “She’s messing with the wrong person if she wants to get feisty. I’m a lot tougher than she is on track.”\nIt’s true that Patrick, the woman who inspired a national “Danica-Mania” by becoming the first female to lead the Indy 500 and then setting a record for her gender by finishing in the race, has yet to win a race.\nSome are already trying to equate the attractive Patrick, who made waves several years ago by posing for a men’s magazine in a scanty outfit, with tennis player Anna Kournikova, who gained notoriety for her good looks and marketability but never won a major event.\nBut Patrick is showing on the track she’s far more than just another pretty face.\nTwo weeks ago, in her third Indy 500, she finished eighth. But, before the race was cut short by rain and her shot at a victory ended by a fuel strategy that left her in the wrong place at the wrong time, Patrick was running competitively with the big boys.\n“I thought she was very impressive,” said Andretti Green Racing teammate Dario Franchitti, who won at Indy. “She had a fast race car and she was sticking her nose in there and racing with everyone.\n“There’s no question in my mind that she can do the job. It’s just a question of everything coming together for her.”\nAt Milwaukee, Patrick had a bad day in qualifying and started 17th in an 18-car field. But she was battling Wheldon and Franchitti for fourth on the 88th of 225 laps when she and Wheldon collided.\nPatrick made a great save, reminiscent of the one Tony Kanaan, another AGR teammate, made at Indy. After she lost a lap while her team replaced a broken suspension piece, Patrick got back on the lead lap and finished eighth.\nPatrick, who joined AGR this year after two seasons with Rahal Letterman Racing, noted that circumstances often dictate how well a driver does.\n“In the first year, I had a fast car but I didn’t have a ton of experience and I wasn’t that good in traffic,” she said. “Then, in the second year, I had a car that was slow and I had more experience and I was driving smart, but, realistically, I had no chance of winning, really.\n“And, this year, I’m with a new team and I only had two test days before the year started. An engineer can’t read my mind and translate that into a perfect efficient chance every time. So this stuff just takes time and certain things just have to be right.\n“I think the fact that I almost won my first couple of races in IndyCar says a lot about circumstances,” Patrick said. “Why could that happen? I had a fast car. Things are falling into place now. It’s just a matter of getting it done.”