After a rough start to the Fed-Ex 400 left Patrick multiple laps down, it turned out not to be such a bad day after all once the checkered flag flew.
Patrick started the race in 39th and after a few laps, was up to 34th and rising. Lap 37 was when everything came to a halt. Racing hard with David Stremme for position, Patrick made contact with his left rear and cut the tire on her GoDaddy machine sending her to the pits early in the race for new tires and repairs to the No. 10. “It was one of those Martinsville-like deals, where we got all bunched up and I had no option but to keep the steering wheel straight or else we both would’ve gotten taken out,” Patrick said over the radio. After coming out of the pits 41st and three laps down, Patrick’s day started to look up. She gained 17 spots throughout the final 360 laps and lost only one more lap to the leaders. She left Dover with a 24th place finish. “I definitely didn’t make our day start off right by getting into the 30 in (turns) three and four and getting a cut tire, we were only 30 or so laps into the run,” she said in a press release after the race. “It made for a long day, but it didn’t mean that the GoDaddy team gave up. We still salvaged points, of course. That’s what we have to keep doing – learning and finishing all of these races so I can get better.” Patrick’s teammate and car owner Tony Stewart came away with the win at Dover which is a major boost for Stewart-Haas Racing. The series head to Pocono for a stand-alone event this week and this will mark Patrick’s first race, in any series, at the track. Stewart-Haas Racing was one of the teams scheduled at the test at Pocono a few weeks ago which allowed Patrick to log her first laps at the track. Pocono is often referred to as the Indy of the East due to its similarities to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Its turns were made to resemble those at Indy and also those at Daytona, two of Patrick’s best tracks, leaving her excited to race here for the first time. “It seems like a neat place, definitely a unique track. I’m looking forward to it, and I’m glad that we tested so I was able to get familiar with the place before coming back this week,” she said in a press release. “These official tests are really, really helpful for people like me who still had yet to be to certain tracks. This is the last track that I hadn’t been to, so it’s good that we tested.” Patrick has been learning a lot from her fellow teammates as well. “I poke my head in the car and ask both of them how it’s going. Questions like, ‘Can you carry the brake in there very deep?’ If they are shifting in all the corners right now – just braking markers and things like that. Having them around is helpful but, to be honest, really having their data to look at and be able to just kind of look at their braking points and their brake pressure, minimum speed through the corner and things like that – that’s the stuff that is the most helpful, she said. Patrick was seen in Victory Lane giving her boss a well-deserved hug at Dover after his win. With the struggles that SHR has had this season, the Victory may have been with the No.14 team, but it was a victory for the entire organization. “I was happy for him and I was happy for the team. It’s been a struggle for everyone this year,” she said, “but everyone has worked really, really hard. The drivers, the crew chiefs, the engineers, everyone at the shop – everyone on the team is working extra hard to get better. To get a victory is huge for the team. It gets the momentum going in the right direction and I’m sure it will make everyone work even harder. I think it was something that was needed.” Watch out for Patrick this weekend at Pocono. The team is high on momentum with Stewart’s win last weekend and Pocono has been known to treat Rookie drivers pretty well; especially those who get along with Indianapolis and Daytona.
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600 grueling miles and over 5 hours of racing left the GoDaddy superstar with a disappointing 29th place finish.
The Coca-Cola 600 runs on Memorial Day weekend and on a day where Danica Patrick used to find herself amongst the Indy 500 festivities, she now finds herself sitting back and watching, for the second year in a row. Last season marked Patrick’s first season away from the IndyCar Series and her first time missing the race that made her a household name in 2005. This year, it was no different. Although Patrick has said she would love to return to the Indy 500 and pull the “double,” her focus right now is entirely on her NASCAR career. Sunday was Patrick’s second attempt at NASCAR’s longest race, the Coke 600. Last season, she started 40th and finished 30th. This season, she hoped to improve immensely on that result. After a 24th place qualifying effort left her both pleased and starting ahead of her boss Tony Stewart, the GoDaddy team was optimistic, until it happened. During practice, Crew Chief Tony Gibson broke the news that there was an oil leak in the engine and they would have to change it which in turn put Patrick at the back of the field for Sunday’s race. Fighting her way up front with a great racecar out together by her team, Patrick was well on her way to her first top-20 finish on a mile and a half track this season. Things were looking promising, until lap 319. Shortly after a restart, Patrick was in the middle of a three-wide battle when she made contact with Ricky Stenhouse Jr and reigning Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski. Stenhouse moved up the track at the same time Keselowski came down on Patrick, which sent her nose first into the turn three outside retaining wall and into Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford and ultimately led to extensive damage to her racecar. With heavy damage to the right front of her racecar, Patrick made multiple trips down pit road for major repairs. The wreck took her out of 21st place and she ended the day 15 laps down in 29th. “We obviously started from the back, and track position was really important here at Charlotte,” said Patrick in a press release. “We fought our way back to trying to be in a position to be on the lead lap. I felt like we were making real progress and starting to get the car to a place that was really good and had an accident, which is unfortunate because we were moving up. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. We just need some luck.” Her Crew Chief Tony Gibson agrees. “Our car was really strong all day – probably one of the best cars we had had since Kansas. Pit stops were good. Danica did an awesome job. All we could do was get the car fixed and try to finish the race and go on. We will build on the high stuff from tonight. We had a good car. We’re showing some strength. We’re making our stuff better during the race, and that’s what we’ve got to do. This weekend, the team moves on to the Monster Mile that is called Dover International Speedway. Patrick made one of her 10 Sprint Cup Series starts here last season, starting 38th and finishing 28th. She has also made three Nationwide Series starts and also a bit of history at Dover. In September 2010, Patrick started 13th and finished 6th in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race at Dover leading three laps and becoming the first female in the series to do so. Stewart-Haas Racing was involved in a teat at Dover earlier in the month which allowed Patrick to get in some precious laps that will help her in this weekend’s race. Dover is fun. It’s fast and it can make for a really long day of racing,” she said in a press release. “I think that’s part of the appeal of it – how demanding it can be. We definitely want to stay out of trouble, which is easier said than done at these types of tracks.” Throughout the summer stretch, Patrick will encounter a majority of tracks that she has yet to visit in a Cup car, including the eluding road courses. As the summer months hit in full force, Patrick will be ready with her notebook and pen, absorbing information like she does best. Listening to Patrick’s radio through the duration of the Coke 600, there is one thing that sticks out in my mind that Gibson said to her after the wreck that I think we can all apply to some aspect of our lives, racing or not, and it goes like this: “I told Danica that one day we’ll be the windshield and not the bug. We’re making progress. We’re making gains. We just have to be ready for when it’s our turn, and we will be. The fans spoke loud and clear according to Miss Sprint Cup last Saturday and voted Rookie Danica Patrick into the Sprint All-Star Race.
Patrick attempted to race her way in to the Sprint All-Star Race via the Sprint Showdown but came up short when she finished 9th to race winner Jamie McMurray and runner up Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Although the fan vote winner wasn’t announced until the very end of drivers’ introductions, it was clear Patrick was the winner, and that left many very unhappy. When Patrick’s name was called and she and her pit crew came up on stage, there was an audible mix of both cheering and boos, enough so to garner quite a few responses from members of the media. The cheers were definitely louder than the boos but they were still very noticeable. The question that was brought up was that has Patrick begun to run her course in the Sprint Cup Series without consistently finishing in the top-15? That is up to the individual asking. Patrick’s car was near perfect during the Sprint Unlimited race but sometime between the end and then the start of the Sprint All-Star Race, something changed. Patrick ended up fighting a severely tight racecar all night that even had Crew Chief Tony Gibson perplexed. “We were just too tight,” she said. “The guys did a great job on pit road. That goes without saying. It was just a tough night, but hopefully we are able to figure out what was wrong, and we can come back here next weekend and have a better run.” “The car was pretty good the first race, and the second race I don’t know what happened,” Gibson said in a press release after the race. “It was plowing tight from the very first lap on, and we couldn’t get it fixed. We slung everything I know to sling at it. Maybe we had a bump stop or a shock give up on it, but I just don’t know right now. Everybody dug all night long and we stayed in the game, and that’s all you can do. It’s frustrating because you don’t know what happened. We’ll try to figure out what we’ve got. During her press conference after it was announced that she was the fan vote winner, Patrick made it a point to thank her fans. Her crew even surprised her with a special decal for her car that said “Thanks Fans” “First and very foremost, thank you to all the fans who voted for me or maybe voted so many times for me,” Patrick said. “I’m very fortunate to have the fan base that I do, and I never forget that. It really just makes me feel bad to win the Sprint Fan Vote and run in the back of the race. We just couldn’t get the GoDaddy Cares Chevrolet right. Patrick took to Twitter after the race thanking her fans again saying, “I am so fortunate to have all you great fans that voted me into the all-star race. Thank you. I really wish I could of made you more proud.” The outpouring of support to Patrick was undeniable; her fans will stick with her no matter what. Patrick and the GoDaddy Crew got to spend another weekend at home as the series prepares for its longest race of the season, the Coca-Cola 600. Patrick was on hand all week doing various promotions for her sponsors including a Q&A session at Academy Sports, a commercial shoot for GoDaddy and various fan events for Coca-Cola. As she gears up for her second run in the Coca-Cola 600, there is one other thing on Patrick’s mind; Indy. Patrick made her name in the Indy 500 by becoming the first woman to lead laps and holds the highest finish for a woman at 3rd. This will mark Patrick’s second year watching the Indy 500 from her motorhome instead of being out on the track. Will she ever pull the double and try both races on the same day? According to Patrick, it isn’t out of the question. In fact, the talk about doing it this season was strong but ultimately, Patrick decided to focus solely on NASCAR and the Coca-Cola 600, but don’t rule it out in the future. Memorial Day weekend is one of the best of the year. School is out for the summer, two of the best races in the world bring together the best drivers in the world, and most importantly, it’s a time to celebrate all of those who have served or who are serving in out nations military. So start off your Sunday morning with the Indianapolis 500 then finish your night with the Coca-Cola 600. An entire day dedicated to the best racing in the country, what more could a race fan ask for? Danica’s second trip to the Lady in Black, otherwise known as Darlington Raceway, didn’t go exactly how she and her team had hoped. This marked Patrick’s second start at NASCAR toughest track after she made her inaugural appearance there last season as one of her 10 scheduled Sprint Cup Series races.
After hitting the wall in the middle of the first practice session that put her in a back-up car, Patrick and her team struggled to find the right set up in time for qualifying. Starting 40th for Saturday’s race, Patrick reported a tight-handling racecar but with only one caution flag in the first 303 laps, it left little time for the team to make adjustments. “Those long green flag runs just killed us,” Patrick said in a press release after the race. “It’s tough because you get behind, and it’s hard to get caught back up when the pace is that fast and there are so little yellows at the beginning. We had a setback in practice, and that cut into our practice time and because of that we didn’t get to make any qualifying runs, which led us to going out cold in qualifying, which is not a strength of mine anyway. So it was just a tough weekend. Nothing is wasted. No run or no lap is wasted, but sometimes the fruits of your labor aren’t realized until later on.” Despite her 28th place finish, her Crew Chief Tony Gibson was pleased with her efforts. She did a really nice job. Probably about halfway through the race, it kind of clicked, and she started running some really good lap times,” he said. “She picked up on a few things following other guys, so our progress I thought went really good. The goal coming in here was to run all the laps, and if we can’t run them all, run as many as we can. Learn, then go home and digest all that and put it in our notebook and build off that, and that’s exactly what we did. She gave great feedback, and we made the adjustments, and it showed in the lap times. The pit stops were really, really good, and Danica did a good job. We learned a lot, and we’ll build on it for the next one.” The team is off this weekend as they don’t have to worry about running for points but they still have a race to prepare for. Patrick is scheduled to run in the Sprint Showdown, a race that lets drivers who haven’t qualified for the Sprint All-Star Race a chance to race their way in. If she doesn’t finish in the top two positions, she can still rely on the fan vote as a way to get into the big show. There are two ways to vote for Danica Patrick to get her into the All-Star Race: Online and by the NASCAR Mobile 13 App. GoDaddy, Patrick’s primary sponsor, is donating money to three notable charities this season through their foundation, GoDaddy Cares, which will be featured on Patrick’s car this weekend. Those three charities are: Hope for Haiti: Hope for Haiti is a Naples, Fla.-based charitable organization operating in Port-au-Prince and out of Les Cayes in the south of Haiti. Serving in the most remote areas, Hope for Haiti’s mission is to improve the quality of life for the Haitian people, particularly children, through education, nutrition, and health care. For more than 20 years, the organization has been working in partnership with the Haitian people to connect, heal, and empower communities on the path toward sustainability. National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF): The National Breast Cancer Foundation was founded in 1991 by breast cancer survivor Janelle Hail. NBCF continues to grow every year to help more and more women around the world by educating them about breast cancer and providing free mammograms to women in need. VEX Robotics / REC Foundation: The Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (REC) seeks to increase student interest and involvement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by engaging students in hands-on sustainable and affordable curriculum-based robotics engineering programs across the United States and internationally. If you want to see Danica Patrick in the All-Star Race, then click here to vote online or check out the NASCAR Mobile 13 App where each vote casted counts twice and catch her in the Sprint Showdown Saturday night. The Fan Vote closes at 5pm ET on May 18th. The Lady in Green known as Danica Patrick will face off against the Lady in Black known as Darlington Raceway for the second time in her Sprint Cup career this Saturday. After a roller coaster ride that is known as Talladega, this short track will definitely give us race fans a good show.
Patrick took to Talladega Super Speedway last weekend and tried to repeat her whirlwind weekend at Daytona. Running in the Nationwide Race with Turner Scott Motorsports with sponsorship from AccuDoc Solutions and GoDaddy, Patrick qualified 4th but unfortunately finished 39th after her tandem draft with teammate Kyle Larson went horribly wrong and sent her spinning through the muddy infield. “I hate it for everyone at Turner Scott Motorsports, this is the second time they gave me great car this season,” said Patrick in a press release on her website. “We were just riding and trying to make our way back up to the front. I’m just disappointed that I wasn’t able to bring the AccuDoc Solutions/Go Daddy Chevy home with a finish that I felt like we could have gotten.” Sprint Cup qualifying was rained out on Saturday leaving Patrick starting in the 23rd position. Patrick missed a big accident early in the race that claimed thirteen cars and showed car control that stunned her Crew Chief Tony Gibson. “We were watching, and we were like, ‘Holy cow,’” Gibson said. “The next thing you know is she came on the radio, and she just aimed for the empty hole. I don’t know how she missed the No. 18 (Kyle Busch) there at the end. How she survived, I have no idea. The GoDaddy.com Chevy did good, and our spotter (Brandon Benesch) did an awesome job.” Unfortunately, when the race was restarted after a three and a half our rain delay, she wouldn’t get so lucky. Running mid pack, an incident that started between Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and J.J. Yeley cause another big one. “Ricky was trying to make it four-wide, and the No. 36 (JJ Yeley) came up to block him, and it turned him,” she said in a press release. “Then the No. 78 (Kurt Busch) was spinning; I went high, and somebody came up and clipped me and put me in the wall. I’m not sure which car it was. Honestly, it is just the way it goes. People forcing the issue. It is late in the race; I get it. But that’s what causes these accidents that makes speedway racing speedway racing. It’s just unfortunate for everyone on the Go Daddy team.” Patrick has made two starts at Darlington, both coming last season. She started 15th and finished 12th last season in the Nationwide Series and then made her second start in the Sprint Cup Series the very next day and finished 31st. “Last year, I ran there in the (Sprint) Cup race and it was basically my first Cup race, really. I ran Daytona, but Darlington was like getting thrown into the deep end. That was the purpose of it, to get seat time so I’m not thinking or dreading going there this weekend worrying about what that’s going to look like for me and how it’s going to feel. I have an idea now of how it’s going to feel and what needs to be done.” So how will the Lady in Green fair against the Lady in Black? Tune in Saturday night to the Southern 500 to see for yourself. And don’t forget to vote for Patrick in the Sprint All-Star Race! Voting is open until 5pm ET on May 18th! Last weekend’s race in Richmond probably won’t rank high on Danica Patrick’s list of favorite races of 2013. Patrick finished 29th, one place better than where she started, and four laps down from race winner Kevin Harvick.
Patrick was battling a racecar that was loose on entry, tight in the center and loose on exit in the corners. Her team, led by Tony Gibson, made small improvements throughout the race but nothing really brought the car to her. “We were just so tight in the center of the corner. We just couldn’t loosen the car up enough to make the center work the way we needed to,” Patrick said in in a press release after the race. “Tony Gibson and the Go Daddy guys threw a lot at it, but we just couldn’t get the center quite right. We were loose in, tight center, loose off, but as much as we tried to loosen up the center, we never really affected the entry either.” In the end, Richmond was another learning experience for the Rookie driver who moves on to Talladega this weekend, the sister track to Daytona. Patrick brought the world of NASCAR into the mainstream media at Daytona when she captured the Pole for the Great American Race and ran in the top-5 all day then dropped to eighth on the last lap. As she heads to Talladega this weekend, she hopes to garnish similar results. “I feel like I’ve learned some lessons from Daytona about the draft and how that unfolds at the end if you are in the right place at the right time,” she said in her pre-race news release. “I think that, when we talk superspeedway racing, there’s a lot of luck involved. Like I said, right place at the right time … there are a lot of people who have a good chance of winning Talladega, I think. Hopefully, we are one of them at the end of the race. But, we won’t know that until end of the race.” Gibson and the team are bringing Patrick’s Pole car from Daytona to the race as her primary this weekend so there is no doubt it will be fast. Can Patrick sit on the Pole for the Aaron’s 499 on Sunday? It’s quite possible. Patrick is pulling double duty this weekend as she gets behind the wheel of the No.34 Turner Scott Motorsports AccuDoc Solutions Chevrolet for the Aaron’s 312 Nationwide Series Race on Saturday. Patrick made her debut in this car at the Drive4COPD 300 in Daytona and was leading laps until what seemed like an engine issue sent her to the garage. She ended the practice sessions yesterday low on the speed charts but was among the fastest running single car laps. “I really enjoy racing at the superspeedways, and Turner Scott Motorsports has a great superspeedway package,” she said. “We had a great run going in Daytona, and I’m hoping we can pick up where we left off. I have a great crew, and I feel like we have an opportunity to bring home a solid finish for AccuDoc Solutions, Go Daddy and TSM.” Patrick was busy off the track before heading to Talladega. Earlier this week, she attended the Chicago Blackhawks game as they faced off against the Minnesota Wild in the Stanley Cup playoffs. She participated in the “Shoot the Puck” contest between the 2nd and 3rd periods. Dressed in an oversized Blackhawks jersey with her name and number on the back and white skinny jeans, Patrick made her first shot without any problems but couldn’t quite make the others (Check out the video here). With two races this weekend and also a contest judging on her hands, Patrick is going to be busy at Talladega. Can she get her first stock car win this weekend? The possibility is not out of the question. Patrick is definitely one of the stronger Super Speedway racers in both series this weekend and although she hasn’t come out victorious quite yet, it is entirely possible. Want to see Nightline’s piece on Patrick and her crew at Martinsville this season? Click here. In the matter of 4 days, Danica Patrick had been in three different time zones. Patrick started off the Kansas race week in Los Angeles shooting a commercial for GoDaddy.com with GoDaddy and IRL driver James Hinchcliffe. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Patrick found herself back at Daytona for the first time since her historic Speedweeks, participating in a tire test with a few other drivers and teams. Then it was off to Kansas for the eighth race of the season.
Returning to Kansas Speedway for the second time, you can bet Patrick was determined to have a different outcome than last season when she unintentionally took herself out of the race. This year though, she ran into a different problem. Patrick was eyeing a top-15 finish until a piece of trash on her grille forced her to make an unscheduled pit stop, putting her 2 laps down to the leaders. She would eventually get one lap back and finish 25th. “We started out pretty good, but we just got tight in the second half of the race,” Patrick said after the race. “We had a tire rub at one point and issues with the splitter from some contact we made. The trash on the grille was what really hurt us today. It’s disappointing because I think we could have had a much better finish with the Go Daddy Chevy, but it’s one of those things that’s out of our control.” Crew Chief Tony Gibson thought his driver did very well considering the unfortunate circumstances. “She did a great job, and it was definitely a top-15 car,” Gibson said. “We made improvement and the pit stops were good, but you can’t do anything about the trash on the grille. It’s just one of those things we just can’t control. That’s just part of it. But the bright side is that we finished again and got a lot of laps in, and we made some improvements and made a lot of gains. I felt like today was a positive day.” Up next for Patrick is her first attempt at Richmond International Raceway, in a Cup car that is. She has competed in five IZOD IndyCar Series races where she has scored four top-10 finishes and three NASCAR Nationwide Series races at Richmond. It was also just three short weeks ago that Patrick impressed many by finishing 12th in her first attempt at Martinsville Speedway. Richmond, a .75 mile oval, should play well into Patrick’s skill set but one thing the team needs to improve on, is qualifying. She has talked to teammate and owner Ton Stewart and knows qualifying is something she needs to work on. “It’s not necessarily my strong area and I know that,” she said in her pre-race report. “I was saying that in the Nationwide Series – once I really got comfortable in the car and understood it and what it did when you pushed it, and obviously developed a setup that I am comfortable with, things really changed. And, all of a sudden, it was like a light switch and I was like, all right, I’m actually not so bad at qualifying these things anymore. But it took time. I think the best thing we can do at this point in time is to try and get a car underneath me that I feel comfortable with and try to develop a good platform that we can go with each and every weekend to these 1.5-mile tracks, and to the short tracks, too, and just know what I have, as well.” Her qualifying efforts get better with each weekend and with another Super Speedway coming up soon, another top-10 starting spot is not out of her reach. Before Patrick heads to Richmond, she has a few pit stops to make including appearances on The Colbert Report and the ever popular morning news program, the Today Show. Check her out on both of these programs and don’t forget to tune in to watch the action in Richmond this Saturday night at 7:30 EST. After a great run at Martinsville, the GoDaddy team was looking to carry that into this last weekend’s race at Texas Motor Speedway, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
Danica Patrick started the weekend off on a high note as she arrived at the track decked out in full western gear, even sporting a cowboy hat and the big belt buckle given to her by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. last season. But as the race weekend got started, Patrick’s chipper attitude changed as her team, and the other Stewart-Haas Racing cars, started to struggle. Patrick and her No. 10 GoDaddy team seemed to struggle at Texas with the setup of the car. After running well during the first and most of the second practice sessions, it looked like this could end up being another great weekend for Patrick, but then things started going downhill. After a poor qualifying run left her starting 42nd out of 43 cars, Patrick had to fight her way to the front once again. At the start of the 500 mile race, Patrick was fighting a very loose race car. When Crew Chief Tony Gibson came over the radio asking her how bad it was, she responded with a shaky voice, “4 out of 5” loose. A caution allowed her team to make some adjustments but she was already lapped by the leaders. As the laps counted down, Gibson and his team made major changes to her car and by midway through the race, it was much better than it had been. Unfortunately, on a track like Texas, once you go down multiple laps, it is hard to get them back. Danica ended the day P28 and three laps down to the leaders. Although there were some rough spots in the race, the banter on the radio was still light and funny. A late race caution that left many confused as to where they started caused this little conversation between Danica and her Crew Chief, “I feel like I don’t understand what’s going on here.” “We got no beef with any of these guys so stay clean.” At the end of the day, or night I should say, this was another great learning experience for Danica and her team. She had made one previous start at Texas in the Sprint Cup Series at the end of last season and it was also the first race she was paired with Gibson. “It was a tough night,” Patrick said. “The car was just kind of all over the place at the beginning. Tony Gibson (crew chief) and the GoDaddy guys kept working on it all night, and we made some improvements on it. The pit crew did a good job on the stops. We just need to get better on the 1.5-mile tracks. I know the team will keep working at it. We’ll see what we can do in Kansas.” She does indeed head to Kansas Speedway this weekend for her second start there in the Cup Series. She made her debut there last October after the track was repaved. She was battling Landon Cassill throughout the race, bumping and banging each other until Danica had had enough. She bumped Cassill on the backstretch trying to turn him but instead she sent herself spinning, ending her day. She had a top 10 finish in the Nationwide Series there in October. Looking at the next few weekends heading into the summer, the tracks look promising for Patrick and her team. Talladega, a super-speedway, should be another great finish for Patrick and following Talladega is Darlington. The season is just starting for this Rookie and she has plenty of time to improve as she heads into the summer months. And as she heads into the Kansas weekend, she currently leads the Rookie points over her boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The GoDaddy team went into this weekend with little expectations. Martinsville is known for being tough on even the most experienced veterans yet this Rookie driver finished 12th in her debut at the paperclip.
“I don’t know what to expect.” That’s what Danica had to say before she took her first laps at this small half-mile track. Her boss and car owner Tony Stewart said her first time here would probably be pretty comical, but bot was he wrong. Not only did Patrick finish higher than Stewart in Sunday’s race, but she was the highest finishing Stewart-Hass car all weekend. Qualifying 32nd, it seemed like this was going to be another struggle for Patrick. Then during final practice, she shifted from 4th to 3rd gear and over-revved the engine. The Hendrick Engine Specialists decided it was in the team’s best interest to change it and start from the rear. It was not looking promising for the No. 10 and the race hadn’t even started yet. Patrick had made it just 17 laps into the race when she spun in turns three and four and brought out a caution. The spin eventually put her 2 laps down to the leaders, but Crew Chief Tony Gibson kept his team and driver calm and rallied back. Taking the wave-around on laps 242 and 288, Patrick got back on the lead lap, and drove the race of her life. By the closing laps of the race, she was P11 and ahead of her boss Tony Stewart. A little bumping and banging dropped her to 12th and that was where she would cross the finish line. “I tried to guard the inside right there at the end and then (Brian) Vickers gave me a bump, and I get it,” She said in the post-race report released on her personal website. “I was trying to defend and hold my position. We still came away with a 12th-place finish. I think you take what the car gives you… And my car was pretty good all day. We kind of bounced around from being a little loose to a little tight, but we got the GoDaddy Chevy back up there. We obviously went down real early with that spin and were two laps down at one point in time. So I feel like that’s almost one of the things I’m most proud of is coming back from two laps down to being on the lead lap and then grabbing a 12th place at the end.” Her Crew Chief Tony Gibson was impressed with his driver, even crashing the end of her post-race interview to give her a hug and high-five. “I figured if we could finish top 25 and be a couple of laps down, it would be a miracle,” Gibson said after the race. “I never dreamed this. I knew after Saturday and Friday that we had a good Go Daddy Chevrolet. I knew she was capable of doing it… To be able to go through all that beating and banging and survive and finish 12th is unbelievable.” At the end of the race, it seemed like there were many notable people who were impressed with Patrick’s run at Martinsville (see tweets below). @SherylCrow: Way to go @DanicaPatrick finishing 12th! #NASCAR #martinsville @HollyCain: Interesting. @DanicaPatrick 12th place in 1st trip to Mville is better Mville debut than @tonystewart @JimmieJohnson & @RustyWallace #NASCAR @DanicaRacing: . @JimmieJohnson just sent his spotter over to tell @danicapatrick ‘s spotter that she’s doing a heck of a job. First time @MartinsvilleSwy Patrick and the GoDaddy team head to Texas this weekend and according to Gibson are testing there this week before the race. Patrick has visited the Wild Asphalt Circus multiple times both in IndyCar (8) and in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (4). Texas was also one of her 10 Sprint Cup Series races last season and was the first race in which she was paired with Gibson and his team. In her only Cup start at this track, she started 32nd and finished 24th, which at the time was her best finish in the series. Texas is one of those high-banked and high-speed tracks which play well into Patrick’s skill set and coming off of the great run at Martinsville, both her and her team’s confidence is high. The races leading into the summer stretch should also treat Patrick well. After Texas, she heads to Kansas and in three weeks, another superspeedway at Talladega. Hopefully her great run at Martinsville is just the start of GoDaddy teams’ uphill climb. Patrick is still a Rookie in the Sprint Cup Series and really, in NASCAR as a whole. She still has a lot to learn and a lot to experience but with all of the seat time she will be getting in the coming weeks, she will be more than prepared to tackle these tracks when the Sprint Cup Series returns to them later in the season. The Danistar had her best race since Daytona this past weekend at Fontana and headed into the off weekend on a high note but finishing 26th in the Auto Club 400 was probably not the highlight of Danica Patrick’s weekend.
Saturday night, Patrick and boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr made the trip to Los Angeles to attend the Kid’s Choice Awards. Patrick was up for the Favorite Female Athlete Award against tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams and Olympic Gymnast Gaby Douglas. Patrick won the award two previous times and walked away with the Neon Orange Nickelodeon Blimp again on Saturday. “This is a huge award for me,” Patrick said on stage. “Kids mean so much. When I meet you, when I see you at the racetrack and you cheer for me, it means more than anything else. It’s a huge honor next to obviously all the other girls in this category. They all kick butt.” Dressed in a strapless turquoise dress, heels and a sleek ponytail, Patrick looked stunning next to Stenhouse’s jeans and cowboy boots. Very different then the neon green firesuit you can catch her in every Sunday. When Sunday’s race rolled around, Patrick was back in focus. She started 40th in the Auto Club 400 after a shaky qualifying lap but that didn’t discourage her. Almost losing a lap early, a caution saved her and allowed the GoDaddy crew to make significant changes to her car. She gave valuable and useful feedback throughout the duration of the race giving Crew Chief Tony Gibson the information he needed to give her a car she loved. Midway through the race, her car was almost golden. She, along with a few other drivers, were on a different pit sequence than most of the leaders and often lost a lap during stops but battled to keep her car in the mix. By the end of the race, her lap times were in the ranges of the top-10 to top-15 drivers. Ending P26 and one lap down wasn’t exactly what the GoDaddy.com team was hoping for, but it was still a positive day. “The car started off a little bit loose, but once we dialed that in, it was decent,” Patrick said in a press release after the race. “At the end of the race, I really thought it was pretty good. So I felt better at the end of the race than I did in qualifying. We made big improvements. We all want better than 26th and that’s what we had today, and it will be better next time.” With no race this weekend due to Easter, the Series heads to Martinsville April 7th. Patrick has never raced at the famed short track before and her start in next Sunday’s race will mark the first Cup start for a woman at The Paperclip. Other women have taken to the track in the lower series, the most recent being current Nationwide Series driver Johanna Long in the Truck Series just a few years ago. Although this weekend doesn’t involve driving a racecar, Danica Patrick doesn’t get to spend the entire weekend off. She is one of the guest readers at the White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday April 1st. The Easter Egg Roll takes place on the South Lawn of the White House and promotes health and wellness, especially for kids. Seeing as Patrick tried to make time for the kids at the racetrack, being a part of the Easter Egg Roll seems quite fitting for this 31 year old. There may not be a race this weekend, but that just means all of the excitement from Fontana will just be stronger at Martinsville, so tune in April 7th to see Danica Patrick and 42 other drivers take on one of the toughest short tracks on the circuit. |
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