DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR hopeful Danica Patrick's stock car debut at Daytona International Speedway was cut to four laps Friday when rain delayed, then wiped out, the first session of a three-day ARCA Series test.

Patrick's No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was one of 26 cars that got on the race track beginning about 1:38 p.m. ET. Patrick left pit road about 1:56 and said she was flat-out all the way around the track on her third lap.

Patrick's best lap was her fourth -- 51.095 seconds, an average speed of 176.108 mph -- as she began preparation for her stock-car debut on Feb. 6. That lap would not have qualified in 2009.

ARCA veteran Mikey Kile was fastest Friday on the last lap of his three-lap run, in 49.804 seconds, an average of 180.708 mph in a No. 25 Venturini Motorsports Toyota. Justin Lofton, the 2009 ARCA champion, won the pole for last year's ARCA Speedweeks opener with a lap in 49.418 seconds, 182.120 mph.

Patrick had previously raced at Daytona, in the 2006 and 2009 Rolex 24s and tested an Indy car here in 2007, a speedway spokesman said.

"I'd driven Turns 2, 3 and 4, but not at speed, in the sports car in the 24 hours," Patrick said. "So I knew it was going to be a bit bumpy. I built up speed up high for two laps, I guess, and then I dropped down low and was flat-out around the bottom-ish.

"I think I could have been lower, but the car has a little bit we need to work on. I didn't realize it was two-and-a-half miles -- I guess I'm not an attentive race car driver -- but it's definitely the biggest track I've been on in a stock car. I've only been on a mile before and it was a big difference in how much the car moves around quite a bit."

When Patrick got out of the car she quickly debriefed with one of her engineers, then met with crew chief Tony Eury Jr. Her face, hand motions and body language were all vividly expressive of how the car was far from stuck to the road as an Indy car might be.

"The car was definitely getting some action in the rear over the bumps and it was getting a little bit loose," Patrick said. "But I kept my foot in it and I tried not to chase it too much with the steering, because I didn't want to have an accident. But it felt all right, and it was fun. I trusted the car and the preparation of it and the set-up Tony and the guys put under it."

Patrick was one of 10 women drivers scheduled to be at the test. Four of them got on track Friday and local Daytona Beach driver Alli Owens, a veteran of parts of two ARCA seasons, had the best woman's lap -- 50.375 seconds, 178.660 mph -- in a No. 15 Venturini Motorsports Chevrolet.

Just before 10:30 a.m., the heavily overcast sky brightened and the track's four jet dryers, two on loan from Homestead-Miami Speedway, were deployed to begin track drying. Cars took to the speedway but only ran about 22 minutes before a rain squall wet the course.

Speedway president Robin Braig said that ARCA elected to keep the test sessions within the approximate time of their event, which is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m., so they declined to test under the lights Friday.

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"We lost the track [got too wet] on that last shower and it would have taken two hours, at least, to dry it," Braig said of the scheduled 5 p.m. shutdown time. "We'll open the garage at 7 a.m. [Saturday] and be back on track at 9 [provided the track is dry]."

ARCA mandated Friday's testing would be single-car runs only. Saturday should be split between single-car runs and, later, drafting practice, if teams choose to do it.

"It's really disappointing to lose this day, because we were hoping to get in three full days at this test," JR Motorsports' competition director Tony Eury Sr. said. "We're going to concentrate on single-car runs and let her get comfortable in the car before we put her around anyone else."

Eury said he'd set no target speed for this test.

"We've got to make the car run as fast as we can make it run," Eury said. "So we've got a lot of different pieces to try. We haven't run one of these [ARCA] cars in a while, so we've got some pieces made up to try to try to make it a little better. But we're definitely going to ease into the drafting part of [the test]."

Patrick arrived at the track right at 8 a.m. -- in time for an ARCA drivers' meeting -- when some of the late-arriving haulers were still parking. According to Eury she took advantage of the wet conditions to continue the breaking-in process with the crew that began at a two-day test last weekend at Walt Disney World Speedway.

JR Motorsports' Nationwide Series driver Kelly Bires made only a few laps there to set up its two cars before rain began falling, wiping out the rest of the day. In more than four hours of running the second day, Patrick only got out of the car once, Eury said, which impressed him.

The team, which had two cars at Daytona solely for Patrick's use, was confident enough in her progress that Bires was left in North Carolina, Eury said.

After she left the drivers' meeting, Patrick and Eury Jr. took several laps around the speedway with ARCA official Terry Kibbler, part of the sanctioning body's safety team.

"I got more from the ride around the track in the van than I did in the sports car," Patrick said. "Because you don't get any perspective on the whole track, and you get no rhythm for that because you're driving a road course, basically. It was nice for me to ride around in the van and get reference points."

Danica's Debut: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3