At the 2005  Indianapolis 500 race, rookie driver Danica Patrick (born March 25, 1982, in Beloit, Wisconsin--no birth time) led the race until, just a few laps from victory, she had to back off to conserve fuel and finished fourth. In the course of the race, she went from 4^th to 16^th to 1^st to 4^th, had part of her car’s damaged chassis replaced, stalled during a pit stop, and spun out. The following day, her feat and not the actual winner’s dominated the headlines.

 

Not too surprisingly, she is an Aries (see horoscope below). Her birth time is not known but, in keeping with the Aries symbolism, she appears to have been born under a New Moon. What is most unexpected for such an aggressive occupation, however, is the configuration of retrograde planets in her chart (retrograde is an astronomical condition meaning that a planet appears, from the relative vantage point of Earth, to be traveling backwards). Every planet from Mars to Pluto was either retrograde at Danica Patrick’s birth or has secondary progressed to retrograde (secondary progressed means that each planet has been advanced in the horoscope by a day for each year of life). Progressed Neptune went retrograde five years after Danica Patrick’s birth, giving it particular power in her horoscope and perhaps helping to explain her ingenue charisma. All six of these planets occupy a tight 75 degree angle of her horoscope—within a 3 degree orb of being an exact quintile.

 

          Although it is one of the “minor” aspects, the quintile can be powerful when it is strongly placed in a horoscope. The 72 degree quintile angle(the 360 degree circle divided by 5) demonstrates, according to Dane Rudhyar, the creative freedom of the individual to mold outer materials into a form which matches an inner vision. We would normally associate this with artists, not race car drivers. However, Danica Patrick says that she prepares for a race by visualizing the racetrack and repeatedly imagines herself driving around it. When she is ready to race, her inner vision becomes concretized. It is akin to the basketball player who constantly visualizes the ball arcing through the air and swooshing effortless through the net. According to Bil Tierney in Dynamics of Aspect Analysis, quintiles “allow us to grasp a holistic overview, plus grant the power and single-mindedness required to bring such a rare perspective into sharper focus, integrating all intricacies involved into a more unified whole.” This is certainly a description of the act of driving a high-speed, high-performance Indy team car. The quintile also echoes Danica Patrick’s Aries Sun with qualities of freedom, innovation, and the liberal exercise of power.

 

          These six planets, led by Mars, will continue a retrograde progressed march in Danica Patrick’s horoscope for many years to come, all six planets “progressing” backwards in a quintile. Simply from the standpoint of separating from the pack, this would add singularity to the life experience.

 

According to Christine Shaw in her book on progressions, Predictive Astrology, a retrograde planet acts a bit like a planet in Capricorn. For example, Danica Patrick’s retrograde Mars—a signature planet for a race car driver—acts like a Capricorn Mars (although hers is in cardinal Libra). Mars in Capricorn would compete against itself, seeking to better its own speed, tirelessly going on, lap after lap, through accidents and mishaps, never giving up—a lot like the race Danica Patrick ran at the Indy 500.