NASCAR's Danica Patrick and boyfriend Ricky Stenthouse open up on how it feels to have one of your competitors in a race happens to be your significant other.
"I guess it has been a little easier than we thought," Patrick tells USA TODAY Sports in their first extended sit-down as a couple. "It is unique. It is different. But you just can't pick when love happens and with whom."
Patrick and Stenhouse are currently battling for Sprint Cup rookie of the year on the track, but away from the bright lights of the race track, they've built a caring, but still competitive, relationship that makes them the new "it couple" in the sport.
As the circuit continues on to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Sunday's Brickyard 400, Patrick currently remains in 27th in points with one top-10 finish this season, while her boyfriend Stenhouse is 21st. Although she's guaranteed sponsorship, largely due to her mass marketing appeal, Patrick has admitted that she must start improving.
"I'm not really in transition anymore," she says. "Most of the (series) I'd been in for a long time, I was like, 'One more year, two more years. Don't rock the boat, do the best you can.' Now I'm like, 'Holy crap, I've got to make this right.' (Sprint Cup) is it for me, you know? It needs to be better because I'm not waiting for the next thing. This is it. Or there won't be a next thing."
Patrick also touched on the wisecracks from fellow drivers and scandal-sheet headlines she read about her unusual union with Stenhouse, simple saying that it matter not to their relationship.
"It's not that we really care what people say," Patrick says. "I didn't think about it a ton. Maybe a little bit. But I think people mostly were just happy for us."
They both added:
"Does it worry me at all being together so much? No, because we're worse apart," Patrick says. "We're much better together."
"I mean, we're apart for at least four hours on Sundays," Stenhouse jokes.
"But I'm still as close as anyone can get to him that whole time," Patrick says.
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