Former NASCAR and IndyCar driver Danica Patrick once had a chat with Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr during one of her podcast episodes. Patrick opened up on how she got yelled at by her father during her childhood and even as a young driver. As she grew up, she started to understand why her father chose to do what he did.
While speaking with Dale Earnhardt Jr, she revealed, “The hardest thing when you’re young is to have any kind of understanding that it’s not your fault, it’s not about you, the way that they taught you, like my dad was extremely hard on me. He yelled at me, he was I mean every weekend. I recently found out it was every single weekend I went to the track I got yelled at.”
She added, “It was like how did you get over it and how did we get beyond it and mom’s like we gave in. And I was like well now I know that I am a fixer. You know it’s a lot to unpack in that but it is impossible when you’re a kid to have any kind of understanding that okay got it the way you treat me is a lot more about you than it is about me. It doesn’t feel like that.”