Danica Patrick Brings ‘Racier Side’ to Capitol Hill

Racing star Danica Patrick visited Capitol Hill today to lobby for COPD, the respiratory disease that killed her grandmother and that’s been a major focus of Patrick’s work in the public-policy arena.

“I’m just here to use my platform as who I am, and obviously with my experience with it, to relate to those who do suffer from someone in their family having COPD — to try and urge them to do something about it,” Patrick told us on ABC’s “Top Line” today.

“I don’t know what government needs to do about it. But the bottom line is is that pure awareness is going to be enough to do something about this disease and change its statistics.”

Patrick joked that she didn’t “do so well in school on my Constitution test,” but said she’s gaining a new appreciation of how hard it is to move things along in Washington.

And she said she’s excited about focusing exclusively on NASCAR racing next year.

“We all do best when we’re doing something that we really, really enjoy and I just actually really love driving, and especially racing those cars,” she told us.

“You’re just gonna see a lot more of me, that’s for sure. There’s gonna be a lot more racing. But I think it’s gonna kinda bring out a racier side to me. In Indy car it’s — it’s not very good to bump, but in NASCAR it’s something that is pretty useful and it’s very self-policing out there.”

“Have you ever driven down the highway and you think to yourself, ‘man, I just want to bump this guy?’ Well, guess what? In stock cars, you can.”