Danica Patrick played T-ball when she was younger.
She took a tumbling class, although she says she wasn’t very good.
On the basketball court, she was aggressive — maybe too aggressive — and gave it up in high school.
She fell in love with the track as a child. The go-cart track, that is.
Ten-year-old Patrick, now an international racing star, initially didn’t want to get behind the wheel. She wanted to be a singer.
Instead, her younger sister, Brooke, wanted to try racing. When Danica finally tried it, she quickly caught on. Before too long, she was winning races and constantly challenging herself to beat her own lap times.
She had found something she loved, a passion.
On Thursday, the popular NASCAR driver was telling area girls to do the same in life.
“Try everything,” she said. “Find something you really love to do.”
Patrick was the keynote speaker for about 400 attendees of the Smart Women Mark Change fundraiser for JA Girl$. In its sixth year, previous speakers include Alex Sink, Pam Bondi and Jenna Bush Hager.
The program, part of Junior Achievement of North Florida, inspires girls and young women to reach their economic potential through educational opportunities. The goal is to build skills in economic literacy, workforce preparation and entrepreneurship.
For Patrick to succeed in her passion at the highest level, she had to enter the male-dominated world of professional racing. Working her way up, though, she said she didn’t really think about gender dynamics of the sport. It wasn’t until the media attention when she thought about it.
“I never thought of myself as different,” she said, crediting her parents for that mentality. “I didn’t try to be the best ‘girl.’ I just want to be the best.”
As for the young girls who might want to be just like Patrick, she said they should strive to be even better.
“I wanted to be the best Danica Patrick, not the best someone else,” she said.
And through it all, stay confident.
The JA Girl$ program has a mission to do just that for the 3,200 girls it hopes to help this year. The event raised $87,000, plus another $8,000 through donations made at the luncheon. In all, there is a $100,000 goal.
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