Where is ... Patty Moise?

Today, Patty Moise says she doesn't remember the incident.

Several years ago, though, the memory was still fresh. Raw, maybe. It had just happened, and Moise was being interviewed for a chapter in the book NASCAR Trials & Triumphs (Harper 1999). The question about her marriage to fellow Busch Series driver Elton Sawyer had come out of nowhere. There probably wasn't any malice in what the goober asked. It was just ... well ... stupid how the words came out.

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Patty Moise

Really, really stupid.

"I had someone ask me the other day, 'Well, so when Elton wants kids, are you going to quit this so you can start a family?'" Moise said all those years ago. "I said, 'Do you think there's a way to word that that would sound any more sexist?' There was a male driver sitting there, and I said, 'Do you ever get questions like this? Ever?'"

If the truth be known, Moise probably doesn't recall the question. Such things have tended to blend together in the nine years since her last NASCAR start. Not that she's forgotten, necessarily. It's just ... nothing in particular stands out.

"I can't tell you all the different kinds of questions I got," Moise said a couple of weeks ago. "It's funny, over time, when you're in the middle of it, all that stuff sticks with you. But when I move on, I really move on. Now, all of that stuff is just somewhat of a hazy picture."

Moise's last Busch Series start came at Atlanta in November 1998, and other than a stint as producer of the now-defunct NBS 24/7 show, she has remained largely on the sidelines. Visits to the garage here and there with Sawyer, the competition director for Team Red Bull, are about it.

She has continued her passion for showing horses, "eventing" them, as it's known in such circles. She has three horses -- Go Big Red, Albert Square and Landslide -- and competes with the latter two. Eventing a horse is something much more than trotting around an arena. The three stages of a show are difficult, for both rider and animal.

The dressage stage, according to Wikipedia, measures "a horse's natural athletic ability and willingness to perform. Moise also takes her steeds through cross country and stadium jumping. In so competing, there's a very real element of danger.

Because of that, the relationship between rider and horse is critical.

"My mom was watching the Olympics one time, and they came up with the stat that [horse eventing] is six times more dangerous than auto racing," Moise said. "She was just so thrilled. It fulfills that side of my personality. It's a real teamwork with the horse. It takes a very talented horse and a very athletic horse to do that, and a very brave horse.

"It also takes a really good communication and partnership between you and the horse. There's a real trust factor there, because the horse doesn't see any of the jumps ahead of time. ... You jump in and out of water. He really doesn't know if it's over his head or not, other than you've never, ever asked him to jump into anything that wasn't safe for him."

As much as she loves to work and compete with horses, Moise admits that it's not enough to completely quench the competitive fire that is so much a part of who she is. (Continued)