The win that made history was more a whimper than a bang, arriving like a faint echo from the other side of the world at an hour when most of her countrymen were heading for bed. On top of that, it may not have even been the most significant victory by a woman on the day.

Small wonder then, that Danica Patrick felt like she had been chasing that checkered flag for a lifetime.

“I feel like a wuss crying,” Patrick said moments after a victory Sunday in Japan made her the first female winner in IndyCar history, “but it’s been a long time coming.”

The girl who was a menace on the go-cart circuit in southern Wisconsin by age 10 is 26 now and has been the biggest attraction in open-wheel racing for three seasons.

It began on a memorable Sunday in May 2005, when Patrick turned in one of the most stirring rookie runs ever in the Indianapolis 500, and it didn’t hurt that she routinely turned up on the covers of magazines ranging from Sports Illustrated to FHM in outfits that made formfitting race suits look like drapes by comparison.

Patrick’s looks and pedigree made her an instant hit with the media and a marketer’s dream, but she wouldn’t have lasted this long in the competitive world of racing without the ability to drive. The longer she went without winning, though, the easier it became to compare her to one-time tennis poster girl Anna Kournikova — plenty of sizzle, but not even one title to validate all the attention.

As if that wasn’t tough enough, Patrick also finds herself competing for attention with an emerging cast of talented female athletes, currently topped by golfer Lorena Ochoa, who extended her own sizzling streak of play Sunday by winning the Ginn Open. In the bargain, Ochoa became the first LPGA Tour player in 45 years to win four tournaments in consecutive weeks.

But at least Patrick began to justify the hype with her gamble on the 198th lap at the Twin Ring Motegi oval on a cool, cloudy day an hour’s drive northeast of Tokyo. She didn’t have the fastest car, but she and her crew were willing to risk she could squeeze a few more miles out of her last gallon of Ethanol after all the other leaders made late pit stops to top their tanks.

She made the same wager at the Indy 500 and wound up finishing fourth. This time, in her 50th race on the circuit, she patiently hung around the front and finally zoomed past Helio Castroneves with two laps left, then cruised to victory.

“It wasn’t even a matter of doing anything different,” Patrick said. “It was everything coming together with a bit of luck and good pit strategy.”

She learned long ago what most of the drivers who took a back seat to Patrick everywhere but on the race track already knew: That for all the other gifts she possesses in abundance — smarts, toughness, sharp reflexes and charm — she’s still woefully short on experience. That explained why each time she came close to winning, Patrick often seemed less interested in what she was accomplishing for others than what she might have cost herself.

Just minutes after her Indy 500 debut in 2005, Patrick was reluctant to take her place in the line of female pioneers at the racetrack. Janet Guthrie bent the gender barrier at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1977 and was followed by Lyn St. James and then Sarah Fisher. St. James was in the crowd that day, and she noted that half the kids in soap box derbies and a third of those racing quarter-midgets on dirt tracks all over the country were girls.

“This is going to open their eyes and the people who make decisions. It tells them if they have the passion and the commitment, they can work their way up the chain. It proves to them,” she added, “what’s possible.”

But all Patrick could talk about were the valuable seconds she lost due to a stalled car in the pits and a spinout on the track. When someone reminded her she’d made some history as the first woman to lead a lap of the race and finish that far up the track, Patrick said that was little consolation.

“I’m just racing. “I don’t know. It sounds so,” and here Patrick paused, searching for the right word, “goober.”

It was a perfect choice, especially in a town that still prides itself on being the epicenter of U.S. open-wheel racing. The Indy 500 was one of the great franchises in sports until a civil war in the mid-1990s between Speedway boss Tony George and owners and drivers of the Championship Auto Racing Teams, later called the Champ Car World Series, drove racing fans into the waiting arms of NASCAR.

George launched his own IndyCar Series and eventually arm-twisted the Champ Car circuit into a merger that takes effect this season. So while you could argue that any time Patrick notched her breakthrough win was the right time, this time turns out to be better than most.

The past two winners of the Indy 500 — Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish Jr. — have already said they won’t be back. Both have already switched to NASCAR and their team owners, Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske, who made their reputations at the Indianapolis Speedway, have already said they won’t interrupt their stock-car operations to run in the 500.

Not only does she bring glamor and credibility back to Indy this year, a change in U.S. open-wheel rules mandates that all racers and their cars will go off at the same weight. Patrick is 5 feet 2 and tips the scales at barely 100 pounds, prompting complaints from a few male drivers she had a significant advantage in a race where crews will hollow out bolts to lighten the load.

With that excuse gone and Patrick looking more capable than ever of delivering on the promise of her early career, a victory on the fourth Sunday in May at the sport’s most storied historic oval just northwest of downtown Indianapolis could provide the start open-wheel racing needs to rebuild its fan base.

“We have all believed in her and she proved today that she is a winner,” said Michael Andretti, co-owner of Andretti Green Racing, Patrick’s team. “Frankly, I think this is the first of many.”

Andretti might be onto something. Less than 24 hours after Patrick’s win, driver Simona De Silvestro, the only woman in a 23-car field, earned her first win in the Champ Car developmental series.

“Danica wins, I win,” De Silvestro said afterward. “It’s a perfect weekend.”

And perhaps just the first of many.

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(Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org)