Danica Patrick

I happened to be in Washington, D.C. this past weekend en route to the NASCAR race in Richmond when Danica came through the nation’s capitol to promote her book, Crossing The Line. In addition to media stops, she held a book signing and lived up to her promise, as quoted by Liz Clarke in Thursday’s editions of The Washington Post, to promote the sport of Indy car racing by her geniality with fans. (A friend of a friend took his daughter to the book signing, hence the inside info.)

During the NASCAR race weekend in Richmond, I saw Nate Ryan, an outstanding motorsports writer for USA Today. Unprompted, he told me he had asked Danica if she had read my book — the unauthorized one! Danica deferred somewhat and did not answer directly, said Nate. Evidently, she cleverly clouded the issue by pointing out some other books in the marketplace without naming any of them. (You don’t get this far along in motor racing without learning how to put the competition in the weeds!)

My point of view: I saw Danica in the pits prior to the Daytona 24-hour — where I encountered her in a conversation with Calvin Fish (the TV commentator/driving instructor and answer to the last trivia question). Danica and I had a friendly handshake (not the legendary bone crusher) and a pleasant conversation about the race at hand, where she was to share a Crawford-Pontiac with Rusty Wallace and Jan Lammers. I took this response to mean she thought America’’s Hottest Racer was OK.

During the race, I encountered Danica’s agent and her biggest cheerleader, who also happens to be her father T.J., a former racer himself. Her father and I had held a lengthy phone conversation prior to my writing America’s Hottest Racer when I first told him about the book. (He offered no inside info at that time, because of the deal underway for Crossing The Line.)

At Daytona, T.J. smiled when I offered my hand. When I asked him about America’’s Hottest Racer, he said, “I buy four every time I go to the book store.” I honestly don’t remember which of the chain stores he mentioned (Barnes & Noble or Borders), but evidently the clerks ordered the book in sets of four and each time the shelves were re-stocked at the store nearest the Roscoe, Illinois home where Danica grew up, T.J. was there to buy the entire lot.

OK. Assuming TJ’s not trying to just get them off the shelves, America’s Hottest Racer must be accurate in addition to it’s unauthorized status.

Today’s Trivia — Name Danica’s two teammates during her Toyota Atlantic years and this hard-to-google piece of info — who was scheduled to co-drive with Danica aboard a BMW M3 in an ill-fated American Le Mans Series deal that preceded her signing with Team Rahal?