Just two months after retiring from her storied career in racing,Danica Patrickis once again finding herself in the driver’s seat — this time, of the biggest awards show in sports.
Patrick will become the first woman to host theESPY Awardswhen she takes the stage at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Wednesday night. Between rewriting her script and practicing her monologue day after day, Patrick is doing her best to make sure she doesn’t miss a step in front of the millions watching.
“They’re still finishing up the live skit stuff for me, but it’s like cramming for a test, when you do award shows, I feel like, you get it all at the end,” Patrick, 36, tells PEOPLE. “For four or five days straight, all you do is you go over it, you read it, I rewrite it, I make edits, we talk about it, we practice. So it’s like cramming.”
She adds, “The thing is, I don’t really know how to do that, because I didn’t really ever study for tests, so I’m not really sure how to cram, but I imagine it’s like that.”
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Patrick retired from racing after May’s Indianapolis 500, which saw her spin out and hit an outside wall in the 68th lap of the race. While the crash wasn’t exactly the storybook ending she would have hoped for, she says she has no qualms about stepping away from the racetrack for good.
“I did get a couple bruises, but more than anything, it bruised my ego,” Patrick says. “Every other day is a whole experience from getting back into an Indy car for the first time in seven years was amazing. When I think about it like that, the whole thing went so well until the very end. It could have been all bad.”
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And Patrick has bad news for any of her fans still hoping to see her make a comeback post-retirement.
It’s not like Patrick hasn’t been getting her fill of adventure in retirement. She and her boyfriend, Green Bay Packers quarterbackAaron Rodgers, have spent the summer jet-setting around the world, including a trip to India where they met the Dalai Lama.
“[I’ve] definitely been traveling more,” Patrick says. “Just being able to do various different things I had always wished I had time to do.”
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Of course, Patrick’s turn hosting the awards show will be a meaningful moment for the couple, as they first met at the ESPYs in 2012.
“Amazing,” Patrick says in response to the significance of the show to her and Rodgers. “Yeah, such amazing things happen at the ESPYs.”
While Patrick recently said she might not bemaking any jokes at the expense of the Super Bowl-winning quarterback, she has no problem taking aim at other athletes — or herself.
“Everybody is their own person and you have to make the show built around you and your personality. For instance, for me, I’m ready to make jokes about athletes,” she tells PEOPLE. “And you got to poke fun at yourself, too, which I’m going to.”
And something like a little pressure won’t stand in the way of having a good time, the legendary racer says.
“There is a little bit of a difference, in theory, to saying I would love to host it, saying yes, then going, ‘Oh God, okay. I actually really have to do this,’ ” Patrick says. “But it’s a huge honor, huge honor. It’s going to be a lot of fun — we’re going to have a lot of fun.”
The ESPYs will broadcast live tonight at 8 p.m. EST on ABC.
source: people.com
