James Yee / AP

David Letterman, co-owner of the Rahal Letterman Racing team, hugs driver Danica Patrick after she finished fourth in the Indy 500 on Sunday.

Patrick was looking for an explanation herself.

“I can’t believe my car didn’t completely demolish because I got hit like twice,” she said. “Spun it around. I can’t believe I kept the engine running.”

Two decades ago, in the salad days of the Indy 500, Danny Sullivan did a complete 360-degree spin and went on to win the race. Sullivan, too, was articulate, good-looking and an American to boot, and he told the story on the talk shows for weeks.

That kind of personality, backed up by results, could help open-wheel racing find its way back onto the sporting map.

It doesn’t hurt that Patrick is as American as they come, born in Beloit, Wis., and now a resident of Phoenix. And she’s a modern minority of sorts in Indy racing, where 19 of Sunday’s 33 drivers were foreigners, from Japan, South Africa, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, England, France and Sweden, Mexico and Canada — Antarctica was the only continent not represented.

None of this is lost on Patrick.

A few days before the race, near the end of a whirlwind media tour to drum up interest in the 500 and the Indy Racing League, she said, “I want this series to be so kick-butt that all of sudden, NASCAR is going, ‘Huh?’ ”

She provided a few of those moments Sunday. Beneath the grandstand, a couple from Indianapolis who’ve attended the past 25 races together couldn’t agree on much — except that this was one of the best they had seen.

“I was pulling for her because of the ‘girl-power’ thing. But he,” said Renee Fogleman, elbowing her companion, George Knapp, “was rooting for her big-time because she was cute and not because she was talented.”

“I never said she couldn’t drive,” Knapp protested.

But in next breath, he demonstrated what a big job still lies ahead for Patrick. The telecast of NASCAR’s Coca Cola 600 was scheduled to start in an hour and Knapp began gathering up their belongings.

“C’mon,” he said to Fogleman. “I can’t miss the start of that one.”