PATRICK BOWS OUT OF NASCAR
“THAT’S THE GAMBLE AT DAYTONA. IT CAN go so well, and it can go so awful.”
So said Danica Patrick after the final NASCAR race of her career. The 35-year-old had secured her place for NASCAR’S flagship race just a month before the green flag when long-time sponsor Godaddy returned and revitalised her bid to make Daytona in time.
She made an underwhelming start to her drive with Premium Motorsports, qualifying her Chevrolet 28th on the grid. But, free from the pressure of last year, a season she described as a “grind”, Patrick relished the early laps.
She made up seven places on the first lap alone, and ran as high as the fringes of the top 10. But as Patrick pointed out, Daytona is a fickle race. When Brad Keselowski tapped Chase Elliott and sent him into the wall, she was one of the drivers caught out. With severe damage to the front of her Camaro, she was classified 35th.
“It just wasn’t meant to be today,” Patrick said after being cleared from Daytona’s infield care centre. “I’m proud. I’m grateful for everything. Thank you to all the fans. I still have one more [the Indianapolis 500].”
Patrick had enlisted her first NASCAR Cup crew chief Tony Eury Jr, who oversaw her initial transition from Indycar, and he praised her efforts. “It just shows me I made an impact on her driving career in NASCAR and it makes me feel really good,” Eury said. “I told her I was really honoured that she asked me to come to do this deal.
“The whole deal coming down here was we’re going to have fun and try to run the best we can, and she had a lot of confidence I would bring her a good Daytona 500 car. Everybody here at Premium is really good as far as making this happen really quick. We were right where we needed to be but had to finish to pull it off.”
Patrick’s demeanour all weekend was of a driver at ease with her decision to leave, even if it was largely enforced by her 2017 sponsorship woes. It’s unlikely she’ll ever be seen at a NASCAR race again as she plots her second career as a businesswoman. That relaxed attitude meant that she accidentally revealed during a media conference that she would be driving for Ed Carpenter Racing for the Indy 500, awkwardly denying the sponsor who helped her its chance of a grand reveal.
Patrick will just have to make up for it in Indianapolis as the ‘Danica Double’ heads to its conclusion at one of her strongest races.