[VIDEO] Danica Patrick, Justin Bieber, and Ellen Degeneres Go-Kart Race an 11-Year-Old Girl
Left to right: Danica Patrick, Mackenzie Marsh, Ellen Degeneres, and Justin Bieber
Photo: Warner Bros. Television Distribution
There probably isn’t a ton of crossover between NASCAR fans and Justin Bieber fans. Still, there is at least one person in the world who belongs to those two such seemingly disparate demographics: Mackenzie Marsh, who is both a high-speed kart racer and an 11-year-old girl.
And lucky for her, Mackenzie got to meet both celebrities when she was recently a guest on the show Ellen.
Mackenzie, who has been racing go karts since she was only four years old, appeared on the daytime television show to discuss her brief yet accomplished racing career with host Ellen Degeneres. Despite being five years shy of a driver’s license, Mackenzie races Slingshots on dirt tracks at 80 mph (though she would like to transition to asphalt tracks, where the go-karts hit speeds of 100 mph).
Precocious in more ways than one, Mackenzie has already developed a “kill your idols” attitude towards racing, telling Ellen she wants to be “better” than her role model, Chevy driver Danica Patrick. Rather than taking offense, though, Patrick admired Mackenzie’s ambition, and encouraged her to aim high.
After a little bit of good-natured trash talking, Mackenzie got her chance to face Danica on the track in a very brief five-lap go-kart race in the studio parking lot. They were joined on the raceway by Ellen and Canadian pop star Justin Bieber, with the latter ultimately winning the contest.
It may surprise some that Bieber was able to beat not one but two experienced racers, but then again, the Biebs is no stranger to fast driving.
Patrick Grieve was born in Southwestern Ohio and has lived there all of his life, with the exception of a few years spent getting a Creative Writing degree in Southeastern Ohio. He loves to take road trips, sometimes to places as distant as Northeastern or even Northwestern Ohio. Patrick also enjoys old movies, shopping at thrift stores, going to ballgames, writing about those things, and watching Law & Order reruns. He just watches the original series, though, none of the spin-offs. And also only the ones they made before Jerry Orbach died. Season five was really the peak, in his opinion. See more articles by Patrick.