“She’s a much more mature person now than when I first met her,” said AGR teammate Tony Kanaan. “She has handled so much pressure, with people saying she’d never win or that she couldn’t do the job.

“Well, now she has proven she can win and she can do the job. And not just to everyone else, to herself. That can change the way you look at things.”

Winning has definitely given Patrick the impetus to try to change her demeanor outside the race car — for her fans as much as for herself.

“I’ve really tried to change it, to try not to be so mad all the time,” she said. “And one of the (reasons) is for the fans. Sometimes they don’t know how you’ve done even though they’re standing right behind your pit. And, probably the rest of the time, as long as they’re still cheering for you, they don’t care.

“So, when I’m mad and they feel that, they don’t understand that. That’s a negative thing. It’s time to change that.”

Patrick says some of her personality is inherited, adding, “I would imagine that a lot of this comes out subconsciously and just instinctively and I don’t have a lot of control over some of it. It would prove I have some of those mad and angry instincts in me, which is hard to change.

“But I’m trying to grow up. I’m trying to be better all-around for all kinds of reasons: for myself, for the people around me and for the people I don’t know who are around me.”

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As an Indy rookie in 2005, a small bobble that nearly put her into the wall on the first of her four qualifying laps, had Patrick talking to herself. She still qualified fourth — the best ever for a woman at the famed Brickyard — but that wasn’t much solace at the time.

On Saturday, she will have an opportunity to show her maturity — as a race driver and as a person — when she tries to win the pole for her fourth 500.

“One little thing can make a big difference here,” Patrick said. “You’re just on such a knife’s edge around here. So, absolutely, there’s a shot at the pole. I think that there’s going to be a bunch of us with that chance — but we’re one of them.”

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