Danica Patrick Talks About Dating And Racing NASCAR Boyfriend

They may not always be able to share the same real estate on the track as racecar drivers, but when Danica Patrick talks about dating fellow NASCAR competitor Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., she says they can usually be professional, not personal, about problems they’ve may have had in the race.

“In NASCAR, we have a lot more bad weekends than good ones. That’s just the nature of the sport. If you can’t get over it, you’re going to be miserable or eventually out of a job.”

Patrick wrote about dating Stenhouse in an article posted on The Players’ Tribune, a website started by now retired baseball great Derek Jeter. The site was started by Jeter because he wanted to give top athletes a forum to deliver their “unfiltered” thoughts to sports fans.

Patrick and Stenhouse have been officially dating for a little more than a year and a half, but they started seeing each other a few months before Patrick’s divorce from ex-husband, Paul Hospenthal, was finalized in the spring of 2013. The Inquisitr reported in January 2013 that Patrick and Stenhouse were dating, four months before the divorce between Patrick and Hospenthal was finalized.

The racing couple has had a few scrapes on the track, the last one taking place on September 14 during a race at the Chicagoland Speedway. According to the SBNation, Patrick took the blame for the wreck and she said she apologized to Stenhouse. However, in the article she wrote about dating the driver of the number 17 car, Patrick later found out from his spotter that he could have lifted to avoid the accident.

“NASCAR can be a lot more complicated. The truth is that there are more misunderstandings than understandings between Ricky and I, because our only mentality is to go flat-out. Hard, hard, hard.”

Patrick talks in the about how dating Stenhouse makes her happy and that she drives better when she’s happy. They may not always have a good day racing, but they don’t let it interfere with their relationship and they try to imagine what “normal” couples would do in a similar situation.

Stenhouse and Patrick are not the first couple to have a romance at work and, as Fox Sports noted from the article, Patrick addresses people critical about the relationship between her and Stenhouse. “Everyone deserves to be happy. You don’t get to choose what truly makes you happy.”

[Image from Thefastandthefabulous.com]