Bumpy ride for Danica
Seven races into her 10-event NASCAR Sprint Cup run, Danica Patrick concedes it has not been easy,
KANSAS CITY, KAN. For as much as she has tried to keep a positive outlook, Danica Patrick admits her first full season of NASCAR education hasn’t been easy.
“Oh, yeah. There’s only so much of it you can take before you start to get a little down,” Patrick told USA TODAY Sports at Kansas Speedway. “I recognize that I’m learning a lot and putting myself in difficult situations on purpose. I’m fortunate that the people around me are patient.”
She has three events — Sunday at Kansas, Nov. 4 at Texas Motor Speedway and Nov. 11 at Phoenix International Raceway — left in a 10race Cup schedule this year for Stewart-Haas Racing before she goes full time in 2013.
Her biggest takeaway? Cup races are less taxing than the practices.
“What surprised me is the pace in practice is so high,” she said. “Everybody is just really fast, and they’re comfortable. I’m definitely not in the same pattern as far as race practice vs. qualifying runs. . . . When the race comes, I feel more comfortable.”
She hasn’t finished better than 25th in a Cup race but has shown progress on race weekends:
At Darlington Raceway in May, she was last in the opening practice, qualified 38th and finished 31st.
At Bristol Motor Speedway in August, she was last in the opening practice, started last in the 43-car field and reached the top 20 before Regan Smith took her out in a wreck.
At Dover International Speedway in September, she was last in the opening practice, qualified 38th and finished 28th.
She has shown progress in the Nationwide Series, too, on a streak of four consecutive top-20 finishes for the first time this year. But she lamented her 11th last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, saying, “You all are going to say I had X amount of top-10s at the end of the year, and it’s going to sound like crap.”
Patrick, stuck on two top-10s in 29 Nationwide starts ( but with 10 finishes of 11th through 13th), was asked Wednesday why the stats mattered.
“Because I know the general perception is something I get asked about a lot, so I can’t escape it,” she said. “It’s a good question, because at the end of the day, it really is about what I think. I have to consider all the perspectives, because that’s just the kind of world I live in.
“And I also want to make my fans happy. I want them to enjoy what they’re seeing, and it’s a lot more fun when your team is winning.”