https://www.tampabay.com/sports/autoracing/why-its-getting-harder-to-defend-danica-patrick/2324069/

KANSAS CITY, KS - MAY 12: Danica Patrick, driver of the #10 Wonder Woman/One Cure Ford, looks on from the grid during qualifying for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway on May 12, 2017 in Kansas City, Kansas. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images) 700047863

Full disclosure: I like Danica Patrick.

Ever since she joined NASCAR six seasons ago, I've pulled for her to win. Partly because it would be great for the sport and partly to shut up the chauvinists who still don't believe a woman should be driving with men.

In a sport that is losing big personalities — Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart are retired and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is about to be — Patrick has everything NASCAR needs to have a superstar lift the sport up onto her shoulders.

She is charismatic, fiery, outspoken, funny, self-deprecating, well-spoken and it would be naive to say she her looks have nothing to do with her popularity.

She's Wonder Woman. Literally.

Wonder Woman sponsored her car last week.

Patrick has it all.

Well, except success on the racetrack. Which, I know, is kind of the point of this whole thing.

And now, it's her woe-is-me attitude that is turning off some people who actually like her.

Like me.

Last weekend, she gave an incredibly tone-deaf interview that infuriated NASCAR fans and set off a firestorm on Twitter.

Patrick was having a good night in Kansas with 68 laps remaining when she was knocked out in a violent three-car crash that started because of a part breaking on Joey Logano's car and ended with Tampa's Aric Almirola going to the hospital. Almirola suffered a compression fracture in his back and is sidelined indefinitely.

Nobody had a worse night than Almirola. Well, unless you ask Patrick.

While Almirola was being air-lifted to the hospital, Patrick bellyached about her rotten luck in an interview with Fox.

"I feel absolutely horrible, I just don't understand why so much bad luck happens," Patrick said. "I was having a really good night and that's what makes me most mad. Every time I'm doing better something stupid happens. And ... it's just killing me."