After rumors swirled earlier this month, the race car driver has confirmed she's dating Green bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (and yes, she's a Bears fan).. Wochit
On the race track, she is one of motorsports' more accomplished female drivers.
A go-kart girl at age 10 who went on to be the first woman to lead at the Indianapolis 500, the first woman to start from the pole position in the Daytona 500 and the first woman to win a race in the IndyCar Series with a victory at the Indy Japan 300.
Off the track, 35-year-old Danica Patrick is an ever-expanding brand that includes her own winery, clothing line and a "Pretty Intense" new book.
Oh, and did we mention, she's also Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers' new girlfriend? That makes them a fast and furious power couple. Are we calling them Aaranica yet?
RELATED:It's official, Aaron Rodgers and Danica Patrick are dating
For Packers fans who aren't NASCAR fans, here's a quick cheat sheet to getting to know Patrick when she's not behind the wheel of a race car.
1. Brian Urlacher is (was?) her favorite NFL player. She's a lifelong Chicago Bears fan who grew up in Roscoe, Illinois — and was born in nearby Beloit, thus technically making her a Wisconsinite, if you don't mind the stretch. She has fond memories of watching the team with her dad and called Urlacher "my fav player" when she tweeted about his retirement in 2013. We suspect the Bears linebacker has since been bumped by a new favorite.
2. She knows her wine. She’s the owner of Somnium Vineyard in Napa Valley in St. Helena, California, a project that she started from the ground up when she first went looking for land in 2008. You won’t find her name on the bottle. “It’s not about Danica’s Bad Ass Red Wine. It’s not about my name,” she told NASCAR.com last year. “In fact, I almost think my name could take away from it if I put it on there, or used that as the only tool to sell the wine.” The vineyard's first release, a 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon, came out in 2017.
3. She was married. She met physical therapist Paul Hospenthal in 2002 when he treated her for a yoga injury. They wed in 2005. After announcing on Facebook in November 2012 that she was divorcing Hospenthal after seven years, she confirmed to the Associated Press in January 2013 she was dating fellow NASCAR rookie driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. When asked by Men’s Health magazine that same year about dating a fellow racer, she said, “Well, I don’t think I thought it was a good idea. There was nothing I could do about it. You can’t tell your heart who to like and not like. It just happened.” A spokesperson for Patrick confirmed in December they were no longer together.
4. She's a dog lover. In 2014, Patrick and Stenhouse bought a miniature Siberian husky named Dallas and later added Ella, a Belgian Malinois. "I love to wake up and have then in bed and come give me kisses," she told Dogster magazine in 2015." A stuffed animal version of Dallas was introduced in 2015, with proceeds to benefit animals. Dallas also has her own Twitter account @DallasStenhouse, but it hasn't been active for the last year. The dogs frequently traveled with the couple, even showing up in victory lane at a race in July.
No word on who got the dogs when the couple split, but if they need help adjusting to life post-breakup, we know two pups they might hit up on Instagram for some advice: @chancerodgers12 and @frankierodgers12.
5. She's 5 foot 2 inches tall. It's one of 25 things she revealed about herself for US Weekly's "25 Things You Don't Know About Me." "Most people are smaller than they look on TV," she said. (For the record: Rodgers is listed as 6 feet 2 inches on the Packers roster.) Patrick also said in the article she doesn't like to chew gum, prefers her coffee black, owns a sewing machine and loves scary movies.
6. She has her own documentary. After saying no for years to offers of a documentary, she agreed to let ESPN’s Hannah Storm tell her story in “Danica.” The film premiered in November on Epix. “There’s nothing that I take on that I don’t do all the way, because it’s me and I don’t want me to suck,” she says in the film. "Try harder. That’s my saying. I would much rather be one in a million than one of the million.”
Now let’s see, who else do we know who holds themselves to incredibly high expectations and is extremely driven ...
7. She has a knack for showing up on Super Bowl Sunday. She holds the record for most Super Bowl commercial appearances with 14. The majority of them were for her racing sponsor GoDaddy, some of which raised eyebrows for skimpy attire and their racy nature. A puppy-themed one in 2015 was pulled after backlash from animal rights groups. Last year, Patrick returned for a Fox Sports ad promoting the Daytona 500.
8. She would love to have her own cooking show. In an interview with The CW Twin Cites last year, Patrick said she would someday like to add to her brand, which also includes her Warrior by Danica Patrick clothing line, with a cooking show after she retires from racing this year. She took cooking classes with her ex-husband and her new fitness book, "Pretty Intense: The 90-Day Mind, Body and Food Plan That Will Absolutely Change Your Life,” includes 48 healthy recipes she wrote and photographed — everything from Maca Pumpkin Pancakes to Curry Turkey Burgers with Caramelized Onions and Five-Spice Roasted Cauliflower.
9. She thinks about having children one day. She talks openly in the "Danica" documentary about going through an in vitro fertilization treatment about a year and a half ago and having her eggs frozen. “I was like, ‘Look, I’m gonna take control of my life here, and I don’t know where it’s going, and I’m not married, and I don’t know what the plan is, and I don’t know how long I’m gonna race, but I can only have 33-year-old eggs today.”
10. She’s been known to tailgate. In a 2016 video in which she went undercover as a Lyft driver in Charlotte, North Carolina, she tells a passenger she’s been called a horrible driver because she doesn’t like following the rules, drives too fast and rides too close to other cars.
And if you're not going fast enough for her, yes, she's going to pass you.
“I don’t like to drive at enormous top speed, but I do like to drive a little bit faster than everyone else," she once told Newsweek. "So if everybody on the highway is doing 80, I’ll do 82 or something, and if people are driving 60, I’ll want to do 62. I think there’s something in my blood, in my instincts, that makes me want to overtake.”