Danica Patrick Reveals What She Misses Most About NASCAR Racing

Danica Patrick doesn’t have the desire to return to racing. However, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss being on the track and competing against other NASCAR drivers. Patrick has her own podcast which is called Pretty Intense. She said she could “pretty confidently say no,” when asked if she would ever race again. However, she also said, “Never say never,” and then revealed what she misses the most about racing.

“I miss that, like, part that I grew up loving, which was this sort of instant gratification part of going out, lap time, improving, finishing positions.,” she said according to For The Win. So that’s all really tangible numbers, and so, so many other things that I do, like everything now … there’s not that quick, instant gratification from, you know, 27 seconds to the next 27 seconds. So I do kind of miss that instant reward stuff that you had with progress of making the car handle better and finishing better. Things seem to take a little longer to turn the ship with these things. But I miss that. What else do I miss?

“Sometimes I do miss the feeling of, like, really going fast as far as like, handling that (expletive) and feeling really confident and comfortable and knowing that it was so on the edge. Yeah, that’s kind of a magical feeling. I don’t really get that. I try on the streets, but it” tough.”

Patrick retired from racing after the Daytona 500 in 2018. She competed in 191 NASCAR races and finished in the top 10 seven times including an eighth-place finish in the Daytona 500. Patrick also competed in 116 IndyCar races and won one race while reaching the podium seven times.

Patrick went on to talk about the one thing that held her back while she was competing.

“The biggest issue that I think held me back overall in my career was just ones that didn’t believe I was really capable of doing it because then it meant that they didn’t put the work in that it took to build a really, really fast car because the details mattered,” she said. “All the little details mattered and all the extra homework that they did — what we would call massage on the car to correct details and make it a little less drag here, a little less weight there.”

Along with her podcast, Patrick is enjoying time with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers as the two have been dating since January 2018.