In her rookie year in the CART Toyota Atlantic Championship 21-year old Danica Patrick finished sixth in the championship and enjoyed her best race in the Miami season-closer, taking second behind Michael Valiante. It was a rousing conclusion to the year for Patrick and her Argent Mortgage team. Owner Bobby Rahal is very pleased with Danica's 2003 season and believes Patrick has a big future in the sport.

'I think Danica this year has shown very, very well,' Rahal observed. 'I think she's just going to get stronger. Her confidence level is coming up. You can see it, especially in the last several races. Her confidence and awareness levels reached new heights.

'I don't know of any other woman in racing who has competed at this level in one of the most competitive junior categories going and done as well.

'There's no doubt in my mind that she has the competitive spirit or the intangibles that a successful driver has to have--that kind of a chip on her shoulder. She is competitive and she wants to fight, and that to me is as important as anything else. I think everything is in her favor. It's just a matter of how do we make sure she takes advantage of it all.'

Rahal plucked Patrick out of a fallow period in her career at the beginning of last year and ran her in the Barber Dodge series before moving Danica up this year to Toyota Atlantic. She started her career in karts and raced Formula Fords successfully in England, but was struggling to make the next move.

'Two things in particular attracted me to giving her the chance,' Rahal commented. 'One, the fact that she went to England, a long way from home, to race in Formula Ford and Formula Vauxhall at a very young age. That to me spoke volumes about her desire to succeed in the sport and her dedication and the extent and lengths that she would go to chase her dream. It's not easy doing that as a guy let alone as a young woman, let alone at the age that she was doing it. So that said a lot to me.'

The other thing that impressed Rahal about Patrick's European sojourn was when she finished second in the 2000 Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch.

'You just don't do that if you can't drive,' Rahal remarked. 'Some people said, 'Oh, so and so fell off on the last lap.' But she was right in the train and she was able to take advantage of other people's mistakes, and she finished right on the gearbox of the guy who won, Anthony Davidson, who's recognized as a very good driver.

'I think the driving part to me showed that she's more than just a pretty face, more than just hype, that there was actual substance there. And I have to say I think that feeling and sense I've had about her abilities have certainly been confirmed this year.'

Rahal says seat-time is the most important thing for his young protege at this stage of her career as she learns the technical side of the cars and how to work effectively with the team.

'It's been difficult because she really doesn't have that much experience in cars,' Rahal noted. 'She was in England for two years or so, but never had a complete season. So she was short on the amount of experience and the type of knowledge you gain from that. I think this year, knowing what she wants from the car, understanding it, being able to accurately describe what's going on, these are all things she's had to come to grips with fairly rapidly, and still is having to come to grips with.'

Rahal points out that most of her Toyota Atlantic rivals have much more experience. 'Valiante's had two or three years of Atlantic, so have Macri and Joey Hand. Aaron Justus ran the Zetek 2000 series for a couple of years and won the championship. I think she's probably the least experienced of any of the top people in Atlantic this year, and I've seen her really start to progress.'

Rahal says Patrick impressed him on more than a few occasions this year. 'The first race at Monterrey, ending up third and leading Ryan Dalziel and hounding Macri the whole time. She had the second fastest lap there and the second fastest lap in Denver. At Three Rivers she qualified well. I don't think we had quite the right set-up for the race, which showed.

'I think there have been some events where she's impressed and there have been some days where she hasn't been as impressive as we would have liked. At Milwaukee she did an excellent job. She passed Justus and was catching Allmendinger and then almost lost it with a few laps to go and ended up losing it all. When you look at where she started and where she is now I think she's made big strides.'

One of the keys to the success of Rahal's Toyota Atlantic team is Jimmy Prescott, Rahal's longtime personal chief mechanic during his racing career, who most recently was shop manager for Team Rahal. Prescott is in charge of the Toyota Atlantic team.

'Jimmy is no-nonsense, and we had an extremely good year from the reliability standpoint,' Rahal pointed out. 'Jimmy doesn't go through the motions. Anything he does he wants to win. He's very competitive and I think he's been quite pleased in general. There have been days I'm sure when he's been less than pleased, but that's typical of any racing program. I think all in all he's done a very good job and the team has done a very good job.

'There were probably a couple of decisions we made--we had a different engine from everybody else and that certainly hurt our chances. We were slow on the straightaways and in acceleration compared to everybody else. That certainly didn't help. But now that we're on equal equipment in the last few races I think her pace has shown that we're on par with everyone.'

Rahal plans to run Patrick in Toyota Atlantic for one more year before making the big step into Champ cars in 2005. 'I said from the beginning this was a two year program in Atlantic,' Rahal commented. 'At one point we thought maybe she could make the step up but I think a second year is going to be a big plus for her. I think she'll be ready to make the step to Champ cars in 2005.'

Last year's Toyota Atlantic champion Jon Fogarty partnered Patrick in a second Rahal entry in this year's last two races at Denver and Miami. Fogarty provided the perfect yardstick to measure Patrick's performance.

'It was good that we were able to bring Jon Fogarty in for the last couple of races,' Rahal said. 'Danica was right with him and obviously, Jon is a very good driver. So all in all I've been quite pleased and I think next year, her second year in Atlantic, I think she's going to be tough.'

It took some convincing for Patrick to believe in the value of the team running a second car for Fogarty. 'In the beginning she was very much against it,' Rahal observed. 'But I have to say she's had to eat humble pie on that. She admitted that I was right that it had to be a two-car team. I think she sees the value in having a second car driven by a good driver.'

Rahal hopes to run a second Toyota Atlantic car for Fogarty next year. 'We're really going to work hard to run a second car. I really do want to run a second car. Whether it's Jon or not, I don't know. I'm very impressed with Jon. I like him. I like his style and I like the way he goes about things. He's a very good driver. We're going to try to do something with Jon because I think he's a real plus.

'If Danica and he run together next year I think he'd have a chance to win a second championship and I think she'd have a chance to win a championship. I think it would be a good combination. They get along well and they respect each other. As I say, Jon's style is compatible, so I think it would be good.'

In every other sport--golf, soccer, basketball, track and field, etc--there's a women's division or league separate from the men's league. Rahal makes the point that racing is the only sport where men and women compete together.

'As I've said, with all due respect,' Rahal remarked, 'everybody in the media went crazy over Annika Sorenstam playing in a men's golf tournament which is not relevant because a golfer is just competing against the golf course. She's not competing other guys. Any golfer will tell you it's you against the golf course, unless it's match play. Then it becomes a little bit more of you against the other guy.

'And of course, Danica or any woman in racing does that day to day. It is the only sport where women and men compete on the same playing field at the same time in the same conditions. I think what Annika Sorenstam has done is great and I don't want to belittle her at all, but it's just not the same.'

Rahal says prejudice remains the biggest hurdle that any woman faces in racing. 'Certainly all the prejudice continues to be there,' Rahal noted. 'In my case for example, there were a lot of people out there spreading rumors about she and I. Why else would Bobby Rahal be giving her a ride? He must have some romantic tryst going on, which is absolutely one hundred percent not the truth.

'Number one, she works for me and I don't think you could have a professional relationship if you did that. Number two, I don't think she's interested, nor am I. But she faces those prejudices right from the get-go, and she'll continue to face them.

'There are a lot of people that are excited about her being in the situation that she's in, and there are a lot of people who will say she's just there because she's a woman. So the necessity to prove herself I think is far greater than it is for a young guy. Nobody questions why a young guy is there.

'So I think she's got more on her shoulders, she has more to prove maybe than anybody else out there, and I think she's handling that pressure and that expectation admirably.'

Rahal acknowledges that the physical demands will become greater as Danica moves up to faster, more powerful cars, but he's convinced she will be able to cope with those demands.

'It will become more physical as she moves up but she's in very good shape. She trains religiously and she has a diet regimen that she follows religiously. She's maturing as a person. She's still very young but she's maturing as a professional and I think she'll be able to handle whatever is going to face her.'