Danica suffers final blow
AUSTIN Dillon saw his opportunity and took it to win the 60th running of the Daytona 500 on Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.
Never seemingly among the top contenders all day, he got to Aric Almirola’s rear bumper on the final lap and bumped by him to put the number three car in Victory Lane at Daytona for the first time since the late Dale Earnhardt did it 20 years ago.
It was an overtime finish totalling 207 laps, seven more than scheduled, as a late wreck made Nascar re-rack the field for a final sprint to the finish.
Dillon races for his grandfather, Richard Childress, who was also Earnhardt’s team owner and best friend. Bringing back the number three, which hadn’t been used since Earnhardt’s death at this track in 2001, was finally blessed by Childress three seasons ago. But, for Danica Patrick, it was a proud but sad ending to her Nascar career.
Stock car racing’s most successful female driver fell victim to a multicar crash at the Daytona 500 in what she had already announced would be her final race on the popular circuit.
“That’s the gamble with Daytona,” Patrick said of the mid-race crash. “It can go so well and it can go so awful. I’m just sad that it ended that way.” Until then, the 35-year-old had been competitive.
“I said earlier today that I feel like the whole thing was picture perfect... but it just wasn’t meant to be I guess today,” she added.
One of the most marketable athletes in North America, Patrick will run one more race before calling it a career, competing in IndyCar’s Indianapolis 500 in May.
In 2005, Patrick started and finished fourth as an Indy 500 rookie – at the time a record for a woman driver.
She finished third in 2009, the best result ever at the Brickyard for a woman driver, but has not competed in the event since 2011. Patrick is the only woman to win an IndyCar race and to start from pole at the Daytona 500. —