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American motorsport has always had an image problem on this side of the Atlantic. If you believe the stereotypes, then every NASCAR driver still has trouble getting his crash helmet over his red neck, while IndyCar drivers are Formula One's poor relations.

Yet, in May, our friends across the pond got the kind of publicity boost that would make Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone go weak at his very short knees, when an attractive woman from middle America dispelled once and for all the myth that the absence of dangling genitalia prevents you from being a decent racing driver.

That woman is Danica Patrick, a 23-year-old 'rookie' IndyCar driver from Wisconsin, who set tongues wagging when she finished fourth in America's most famous race, the Indy 500.

To be fair, tongues had already been wagging for quite a while after Patrick had posed for FHM in underwear that could hardly be called fire resistant.

She also once led a rival (male) racing driver around the pit lane on a collar and lead - not something that you can imagine the likes of Michael Schumacher getting up to.

Top Gear caught up with Patrick in the run-up to her next IndyCar race in Texas where, under the media spotlight like never before, she was struggling to keep her mind focused on the job ahead.

"It's been absolutely crazy since the finish of the Indy 500," she admitted to us. "Nothing can prepare you for the interest there's been and I've really had to think hard about which offers to take up and which to decline.

"It's great to be able to promote myself as well as the sport, but I'm here to go racing and that means concentrating on the next event."

Not that that stopped her taking Uncle Walt's dollars and using her car to promote the new Love Bug movie, Herbie: Fully Loaded.