FORT WORTH, Tex. – When Danica Patrick pressed the button on Twitter last Saturday to announce her engagement to boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr., social media blew up with the news—until word got out it was an April Fool’s joke. Stenhouse was in on the prank, but he had forgotten about it.
“I was out in the woods working after Martinsville practice, and she says, ‘Hey, it’s April Fool’s—I want to send something out,’” Stenhouse told reporters on Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway. “She said, ‘I’ve got this idea. Are you in?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I guess so. Let’s do it.’
“Then I was on the phone talking to somebody for 30 or 40 minutes, and my phone kept going off, and I wasn’t sure why it kept going off, and I forgot she had sent that out. Then I realized real quick what it was all about.”
Stenhouse said the joke hadn’t increased the urgency to make a bona fide proposal.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a ton of pressure, but I get it from fans a lot,” he said.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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