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Kelley Earnhardt US Presswire

It's not Danica Patrick. It's the woman who signed the IndyCar dynamo to a two-year deal with the Nationwide team.

More than a decade after flashes of brilliance during a three-year run in street stocks, Kelley Earnhardt, 37, still laments whether she could have emerged as a female driving star on par with Patrick.

"I definitely wanted to be," the oldest daughter of the late Dale Earnhardt says with a laugh during an interview a few weeks before Patrick joined JR Motorsports. "I just think it was the timing. It wasn't the right timing. If I were 10 years younger, I'd still be giving it my all.

"There are lots of people that have seen me race and still are involved in the sport today that have asked repeatedly over the last eight to 10 years, 'Don't you want to try it just one time?' "

As recently as three years ago, Mark Dyer, then a NASCAR executive, tried to convince Earnhardt to run in the Camping World Truck Series.

"I thought it would be a huge shot in the arm for the truck series, and she gave it some thought," says Dyer, who now works with Patrick as an adviser at IMG, a sports marketing firm.

Dyer believes Earnhardt might feel "a tinge of regret" about the end of her career, which spanned tracks in Hickory, N.C.; Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Nashville, from 1994-96.

Earnhardt and brothers Dale Jr. and Kerry all were running short tracks in cars fielded by their legendary father.

Though both Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kerry Earnhardt advanced to NASCAR's national series, Kelley felt she had the talent to do the same.

"I watched her race, and she could more than hold her own with Kerry and Dale Jr.," Dyer says. "At the time, a lot of people felt she was the best prospect of the three. There's a part of her that'd still like to get in the car and do it. But I think she feels that train has left the station."

The defining moment came for Kelley Earnhardt came after the 1996 season when her sponsorship ran out. Earnhardt, who had graduated from college a year earlier, entered the business side of racing.

"No one stood up and said, 'Hey, let's pursue this and get sponsorship,' " she says. "Dad just had it in his hands and said, 'OK, you go about what you're doing.' Dale Jr.'s the only one who stayed. He was employed at the shop, and it was easier for him."

Kelley Earnhardt grew up "the tomboy on four-wheelers and always wanting to go hunting with dad" but didn't get a shot at racing until she went to college.

"I was down in Wilmington (N.C.) and hardly ever came home because I had a job in the mall there," she says. "Dad sent me a thing of flowers one day with a note that said, 'It's been so long since I've seen you, I've almost forgotten what you look like.' He really wanted me to move home. He said, "If you come home and go to college, I'll let you live in your own apartment. If you want to drive cars, you can drive cars.' I would always say something to him, but he didn't want his little girl hurt. I was supposed to be his pretty little girl."

Even when granted the full-fledged backing of a seven-time Sprint Cup champion., the racing wasn't easy.

"I felt targeted all the time!" Kelley Earnhardt says with a laugh while recalling rolling into tracks with a well-funded operation and a famous last name. "People have stereotypes of what they think you are. They thought we were rich and had everything we wanted."

Earnhardt says she didn't catch as much flak for her gender because "the guys when I raced automatically assumed you wouldn't be good at it, and they didn't feel they had to worry about you on the track. They liked the camaraderie of girls being around. They didn't feel you as a threat. Threatening was being an Earnhardt and feeling we had better equipment."

She never felt she had much of an edge in personnel.

"To get crewmembers was like pulling teeth until I got a great group of guys the last season," she says. "If it had been 10 years later, I'd have had a lot more support, and support from my dad as well."

As the general manager at JRM, Kelley Earnhardt now is the one supplying the support to Patrick, whom she has discovered to be a kindred spirit of sorts. They bonded over a sushi dinner during Patrick's first trip to the JRM shop.

"She's really, really nice," Patrick says. "We just get along. We're both straightforward people who get it done ourselves. We love racing and understand there is a business side that has to be taken care of, but we really just love racing and love the sport. It's our life."

Indeed, Earnhardt, a mother of two daughters, has done well for herself off the track in emerging as one of NASCAR's most powerful women. After being groomed in other management jobs within the NASCAR industry, she has overseen her brother's business affairs the past few years and recently became a co-owner in JRM.

"I feel I have a very solid path," she says. "I am happy doing what I doing. It just didn't pan out driving.

"But heck yeah, I'd love to have been that person (like Patrick). It'd be completely awesome."