KANSAS CITY, Kan. - When her first IndyCar victory finally came, as Danica Patrick always knew it would, everything was in place to take full advantage of the moment.

"You want to make the most of this event for everybody: the team, the sponsors, the league and everybody,'' Patrick said Friday at Kansas Speedway, where she will try to make it two wins in a row on Sunday.

Patrick appeared relaxed and confident after a whirlwind of publicity following her win in Japan last weekend. The frenetic week included a series of TV appearances, dozens of interviews, attending a movie premiere and an outpouring of adulation from her fans and the general public.

"Yeah, I worked my butt off for a week,'' Patrick said, grinning. "I feel pretty good, though. I think that everything happens for a reason and, if this would have come three years ago on the heels of Indy or something like that, maybe I wouldn't have been so calm and prepared.''

The then-22-year-old Patrick exploded into the consciousness of the American public as an IRL IndyCar Series rookie in 2005 when she qualified second and finished fourth at a race in Motegi, Japan. She then qualified fourth for the Indianapolis 500 and led the race before finishing fourth — all firsts for a woman at the famed Brickyard.

All of a sudden, there was "DanicaMania'' in the land, with Patrick nearly suffocated by all the attention, offers and requests for a piece of her time.

Once things began to settle down a bit, Patrick was able to think through what had happened and learn some lessons from it.

"It didn't go away after 2005, but we sure learned how to manage it and make the most of it,'' Patrick explained. "And I learned how I like to deal with all these situations best, and we got good people surrounding me over the last couple of years.

"It's not like we couldn't have handled (the aftermath of the first win), but I think, at this point in time, having hired a publicist over the winter and having some time to think about what we wanted to do with the first win, gave us the best opportunity to go out and maybe do our best with the event.''

Her best includes having "Danica's First Win'' T-shirts readily available at her very popular souvenir trailers here at the track.

"I think, we as a team and as a group saw sort of the mayhem that happened in 2005 at Indianapolis when everything came on, my nervous breakdown at the end of it all, and how messy everything can get, and knowing we just needed to be ready,'' Patrick said. "We needed to know what we were going to do, where we were going to go, who we were going to deal with and who was going to do everything because we assumed it would be a big moment and something that we could capitalize on for us and everyone.''

But Patrick also knows that her victory, the first by a woman in the history of IndyCar racing, means more than just good business.

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She said, with appearances on TV shows such as "The View,'' her historic win has gone well beyond a simple racing story.

"It goes out and speaks to women and to people breaking the mold and people that are making history,'' Patrick noted. "That's why I think it's been a big story is because it's not just about a win in racing in IndyCar or in sports; it's about a bigger thing that happened and that I've been doing through my whole career.''

Patrick is ready to get back in her Andretti Green Racing Dallara for Saturday's practice and qualifying on the 1.5-mile Kansas oval. But she's proud of how she has handled everything over the past week.

"This is the primary (job) and this is the reason why I did all those interviews, because I did well in a race and did my job well,'' she said. "So I understand what fuels this whole machine. That's exciting, as well as just driving. That's what I love to do. So long as I kept my energy this week, everything was going to be OK. And I did so.''

Now that she has that first win, in her 50th IndyCar race, Patrick was asked if the pressure will be just as great to win the next one, and perhaps to contend for a series championship.

"No,'' she replied emphatically. "I've always felt the same pressure to do everything, to be the greatest, the best driver I can possibly be, and all of that included winning and championships and everything.

"I've always known ... that I could win,'' Patrick added. "But you don't win championships without winning some races. I don't know if that's ever happened. I see that as being much more realistic happening this year than in the past years, so that's exciting to me.''

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