Danica Patrick is My Birthday Baby Superstar

Okay, guess who shares a birthday with IRL racing superstar Danica Patrick?  It’s March 25, which means she is psychic twins with Aretha Franklin, Simone Signoret, Gloria Steinem, and ME!

I haven’t had a crush in a long time, so discovering Danica Patrick, who turned pro when she was only fourteen years old,  is the adrenaline surge I craved. Can we drool for a minute together? She is so fucking cute. She will run you off the road, crying and choking on her fumes— and you will LOVE IT.

I want to be the girl with the cleavage who hands her the trophy and sobs uncontrollably.

Danica drives Toyota— and I drive a Toyota. I knew you’d be impressed.

Now what do I know about race car driving?  Not much, although I first ended up in the pit because of a movie, Heart Like a Wheel, about another champion woman race car driver, Shirley Muldowney.

Bonnie Bedelia— and this is where it gets really spooky— played the title role in the film, and she ALSO is born March 25th. Bedelia's portrayal of this gutsy, proto-feminist hellraiser, the fastest thing on wheels, who never apologized for either her speed or her sexuality, is one of my favorite performances of all time.  Don't you dare raise a daughter and not show her this movie.

The year Heart Like a Wheel came out, I put on my leathers and went with Honey Lee, my girlfriend, to the pit at the old Fremont racetrack to meet Shirley Muldowney. We were the only butch/femme couple there, and ironically, we fit right in.

Muldowney was at a table to meet fans parked next to her hot pink Formula 1 racer. I waited at the end of a long line of small children to get her autograph. Just as she was about to finish and turn away,  I cried out, "No, please stay, I'm not one of the parents— I'm your number one besotted female fan!"

Shirley turned and looked at me in my thigh-high leather boots, mini-skirt, and jean jacket, with Honey Lee smoking a Sherman a couple feet behind me.  She reached out and touched my breast pocket, which had a handmade brooch of an exotic modern dancer pinned to it— Martha-Graham-Meets-Diane-Di-Prima.

"I've never seen anything like that before," she said. —Her first words to me.

"Well, I would be honored if you would wear it," I said, tearing it off my coat.

"Let me give you one of mine," she said, and pulled one of her pins off her fuschia suit. She touched my cheek, and I'll never know quite what she was thinking behind her mirror shades. She got into a truck with a woman driver whose arm rested on the window ledge, flashing a diamond pinkie ring.

"Did you see that?" I turned to Honey Lee with my mouth hanging open and god knows what else.

"I certainly did."

The next race started, and I heard those engines for the first time. That deafening sound went straight to my clit.

Back to Ms. Patrick: The IRL is in heaven because they are sick of folks thinking that NASCAR is the only car game in town.  Danica's championship qualities are the first thing that's made people pay attention to them since Mario Andretti. Danica's a new breed, as well,  because she is the first of the female driver champions to let the media go wild with her image.

I'm including a bunch of photos of her here, for you to see the different takes on her persona. I  like the ones where you see that incredible stubborness in her eyes, and the set of her jaw. That's the look that makes me want to emulate her, and also makes me want to melt like butter at her feet.  I guess I could do both.

I also like the All-American pose she did for the IRL official sponsor shots, because I love the subversiveness of seeing women in those Wheaties-type Hero portraits. Her posture is blistering.

The cheesecake pix she did for FHM magazine are different. Of course I'm as keen as anyone to see her body— but why do they direct her to duck down her fierce chin and peer up at the camera in that doe-like pose? Why do men's titty magazines have to take every heroine and make her look like she's a wee thing who can't decide whether to pout or cry?

It's her competitors who are crying and don't know where to turn, baby! Take a picture of that! Until then, I'll just polish my pinkie ring and hope for the best.