Danica Patrick has faced a lot of pushback throughout her career. Whether it was people telling her she would never be as good as the male drivers or issues with fans liking her for reasons other than her driving ability, Patrick has faced a lot.
And after all she’s faced throughout her career, Patrick isn’t afraid to stand up for herself. That was the case last Friday when after she qualified for the Pocono 400, Patrick was booed by a couple fans.
The incident occurred after security stopped them from getting Patrick’s autograph. One thing led to another, and Patrick ended up calling out the fans for booing her to their face.
Here are Patrick’s quotes in full:
“Since I’m old, instead of taking the booing, what I want to tell you is like, I’m doing the very best I can. If you’re a real fan, you know that I’m not just like…my job is not to sign autographs, right? My job is to drive a car and to tell the crew chief what’s going on. I don’t appreciate the booing. It hurts my feelings. I’m a [expletive] person, you know what I mean? I’m a person too. I have feelings. When you boo me, it hurts my feelings. Okay? Please just be supportive fans. I’ll do everything I can.”
Good for Patrick for calling the fans out and not being afraid to speak her mind. It’s not easy to be a professional athlete by any means and more often than not, athletes choose to block out the boos. And NASCAR drivers like Patrick are already signing a ton of autographs; in fact, the photo up top is her signing autographs for fans at this very race. Booing an athlete for not signing some specific autographs seems a bit much. But Patrick saw a clear opportunity for her to speak with the disapproving fans face-to-face and get her side of the story across, and she took full advantage.
