Danicia Patrick may be the hottest thing in NASCAR racing right now but at heart she's Mom and Dad's  girl who  pays tribute to her folks at every opportunity. Now that she is on the verge of signing a NASCAR contract her super star status status seems assured but fame will not faze her.

Her parents keep her grounded she says. 

After she won her first Indy race in Japan she told a reporter she owed it all to her Irish American parents TJ and Bev, "There were times when we had to work really hard and go through some things that, you know, weren’t really fun."

“I think parents always want the best for their children. And they want to protect them. And even as you get older, whether you are racing or just living in the city there comes a point where your parents can’t protect you anymore, they can’t save you from everything. And I think that is a helpless feeling for a parent.

“But in the end you get there and that’s the relief and that’s the happiest day ever. That was something we had been working toward for 17 years.”

She says they never pushed her too hard to become the glamor girl of the auto circuit. "

“They never pushed me to do something but they would pull me along. (They’d say), ‘If you want to do this then we’ll help you, but if you don’t then we’re done, right now. You can quit racing right now if you want to.’ I don’t know how many times I heard that as a kid.

“Your parents are not supposed to be your best friend growing up. But it makes you respect them as an adult.”

“This was a victory for my family,” she told Yahoo sport