The idea of a woman race car driver – and inside the southern fried, patriarchal world of Nascar of all places – requires so much suspension of disbelief, after all. It’s another version of Disney’s Mulan, but with a fiery race car in place of a dragon. Never mind that she’s still driving that race car, although who knows for how much longer. But that scene always comes back, usually when some barfly is droning on about how Patrick has no business operating a race car. And that, right there, is the beauty of Danica Patrick: she’s an instrument of male and female fantasy, the sports pinup who grinds harder for feminism, day-to-day, than the great Billie Jean King ever could.

Source: The Guardian September 21, 2017 14:48 UTC