Following retirement, racecar drivers have two paths and two choices: to stay in and around their sport or to move completely away from it. Suffice to say, Danica Patrick made the latter choice. However, she’s still remembered in NASCAR circles, albeit not for very flattering reasons. Both of these things were on display on Saturday.

Danica Patrick and Donald Trump flaunt their friendship at recent event

The former NASCAR and IndyCar driver recently made a post on her Instagram account from a Turning Point USA event. In the pictures, she poses with former Olympian Jeremy Roenick, former NFL kicker Jay Freely, and the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who she deemed her ‘friend.’

“My friend @potus. First pic was me telling him how how much I love his buddy @danawhite and going my first @ufc fight after meeting him last November at the MAHA summit. What a wild weird and amazing life I get to live,” Patrick wrote in her caption.

President Trump later gave Patrick a shoutout during the event from the stage. “I love Danica [Patrick]. I love her hair. I always liked her hair. I always liked the little widow’s peak,” he said.

Speaking about Freely in the caption, she paid her respect for his journey from being in the NFL, to being in TV as a broadcaster, to now being in the politics, running for Congress.

“So much respect for high achievers that pivot into a whole new profession! Jay was an NFL kicker then tv broadcaster and now…. Politics. Most importantly, a good human with good values and so much passion for making this country great,” Patrick wrote.

Interestingly, Patrick’s own career trajectory has been quite similar to Freely. She was a star driver in IndyCar, who then transitioned into NASCAR. She made history in both racing series as a woman. She became the first woman to lead laps in the 2005 Indy 500 and finish inside the top 5. She also became the first woman to win a Cup Series race pole in 2013. Patrick then transitioned into an analyst role for F1, and now she’s showing a deep interest in politics.

Having said that, a lot of fans still remember her for her racing career. And while she achieved some milestones inside a racecar, most fans remember her for her lack of success and unfortunate incidents on the track. Be it her incident with Denny Hamlin in 2012 at Daytona, or with Dale Jr. at Kentucky in 2015, or with her then-boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in 2013, or her many crashes, which were more often than not self-inflicted, Danica Patrick is remembered for her low moments more than her high moments.

And this was once again the case during the ARCA race at Kansas on Saturday, when Dystany Spurlock made a crucial save after she was spun from behind and prevented a potential DNF result for her late in the race.

The save led to some people remembering and mentioning Danica Patrick. One fan claimed that Patrick could never have saved a race car like that.

Patrick acknowledged she didn’t live up to the potential and expectations in NASCAR

Following her retirement from NASCAR as a full-timer at the end of 2017, Danica Patrick addressed her legacy in the sport over the past five seasons. She said, “What I came to [realize] in the end was I’m honored there was disappointment [from fans]. I’m disappointed because it meant you expected more, and I did too, right?”

Patrick claimed that fans saw the potential, which she also believed in. But the results spoke differently.

Across her five full-time seasons in the sports’ top flight, she only managed 7 finishes inside the top 10. An overwhelming number of her finishes were outside the top 20. In 191 Cup starts, she had 136 finishes outside the top 20.

However, her fellow driver Kevin Harvick defended her lack of good results. Harvick argued that in comparison to any other Cup regular, Patrick started on the backfoot of being behind decades and decades of experience of racing in a stock car.

“You are never going to make up that ground. As long as I am still racing, I am going to be 20 years ahead regardless,” he claimed.

Having said that, Patrick slowly but surely distanced herself from NASCAR over the years. Since her last appearance in 2018, she hasn’t been reported to have attended a single NASCAR event.

And yet, unfortunately, she’s still a talking point for fans as she was in the ARCA race on Saturday.

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