DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Step by step, inch by inch, IndyCar racer Danica Patrick's stock car adventure continued Saturday at Daytona International Speedway, where Patrick's in the middle of a three-day ARCA Series test.

“

Drafting's not something you learn overnight and she's done real good learning how to stay in the pack, learning what the car does in different aero situations, so we're pretty pleased.

”

-- TONY EURY JR.

From her 8 a.m. arrival Friday to attend a mandatory ARCA drivers' meeting, to an educational van ride with an ARCA safety official, to getting paperwork and an obligatory head-and-shoulders photo done before she could get on the race track, Patrick's progress has been slow and steady.

But her education leaped ahead just after 3 p.m. ET Saturday, when the full-time open-wheel pilot engaged in her first drafting practice on the 2.5-mile tri-oval.

In the space of about a half-hour, Patrick made a 40-lap run that ranged from solo laps, to a tight two-car draft for more than 10 laps with Kyle Martel to formations that included as many as four cars in a variety of lanes.

Eight different cars, including those that turned some of the day's fastest laps driven by James Buescher, Brandon McReynolds and Randy Renfro, switched in and out of the draft with Patrick. The result was a lap at 181.554 mph, her fastest of the test. By day's end she'd drafted with both her test cars, after which crew chief Tony Eury Jr. was smiling.

"Overall she's doing real good," Eury Jr. said. "Drafting's not something you learn overnight and she's done real good learning how to stay in the pack, learning what the car does in different aero situations, so we're pretty pleased.

"We told her we were going to do almost a full fuel run, just to let her feel it out; and that's what I told her. The ARCA race is 80 laps and she said 'this ought to just fly by.' So she's in tip-top shape and it's just time [in the cars] -- that's all it is."

Patrick wasn't available to the media Saturday, but a speedway spokesman relayed a couple comments from day's end.

"We had a good day," Patrick said. "We got out there and we did a bunch of single-car running. At the beginning of the day, we did a bunch of 10-lap runs to just get laps and get comfortable and get the line and get everything down perfectly. Then we went to some shorter runs and then we did some group running. We actually did a 40-lap run. It was a lot of fun.

“

You need to run really close so like, there's no room for error if someone makes a mistake. That's going to be the challenge. I learned a lot and I feel really comfortable in the car.

”

-- DANICA PATRICK

"It's different than driving the cars that I drive. You can run so much closer and you can cross over each other. But you need to run really close so like, there's no room for error if someone makes a mistake. That's going to be the challenge. But it was a productive day. I learned a lot and I feel really comfortable in the car. [Sunday] is going to be even better."

Patrick's biggest shortcoming came from watching the first drafting session, when she never got closer than two to three car lengths behind the vehicle in front of her.

"I guess you can run a lot closer than what I thought," Patrick said. "Two car lengths up above from my spotter is like on him for me. That's on him in IndyCar. It was a little bit more challenging to get that last car length or get up on him. We even got to the point where they're like 'give him a bump down the straight.' I was trying but I couldn't catch him. It's getting in that mode that you need to be right on him to take advantage of the situation and stay with the draft."

Saturday's test was everything that was expected Friday, when morning and afternoon rain limited track time to a little more than 20 minutes, and held Patrick to just four laps in her stock car debut.

Patrick, who'd been here before for two editions of the Rolex 24 sports car race as well as a February 2007 IndyCar test, adapted well, getting her No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet wide open on only her third lap around the track.

On Saturday morning, she ran both the cars she had available at the test, one for 26 laps and the other for eight laps. She logged 69 laps on Saturday afternoon with her primary car and 14 more in the second chassis.

"We just decided this car would be the primary, so we've been trying to concentrate on it," Eury Jr. said. "If you get to switching back and forth, you just end up cutting down on your track time, so we're trying to do most of the work with the primary car, and just shaking this other one down to make sure it doesn't have any issues, so it can be our backup."

By Saturday afternoon, Patrick was turning solo laps that should comfortably get her into the ARCA season opener on feb. 6 that's part of Daytona's Speedweeks 2010. On her very next outing after the full fuel run that included plenty of drafting, Patrick turned a lap in 50.074 seconds, an average speed of 179.734 mph. That lap would have earned her a top-15 starting position in 2009's ARCA opener.

Eury Jr. wasn't satisfied, however.

"I think I need a little more speed in the car on single-car runs," said Eury, who knows Patrick will have to qualify on speed for the ARCA race, where only the fastest 32 cars make it in, with the rest of the field comprised of provisional starters.

"Overall, it's been a good, successful day. We'll come back [Sunday] and let her draft a little bit more and I think it'll be game on. The biggest plus I've seen is how quickly she gets up to speed. She definitely takes her time, but it's great working with her because she has a great personality.

"She likes having fun, but she likes being serious at the same time. But just how quick she's adapted to the cars, because there's a lot more movement, a lot more travel and they're a lot heavier than what she's been around and they've got less downforce, so the way she's picked up on it, she's done a great job."

On Friday, the media pressure on Patrick was intense, with about 20 still and video photographers forming a funnel the first time she left her hauler to get to her garage, on the end of the building closest to the media center that's between the ARCA and Cup garages at Daytona.

Saturday, a sunny but cool day with occasional brisk winds, there were more spectators in the infield and Patrick took a moment on her lunch break to sign autographs for fans measuring a full range of ages and sexes.

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The impact of Patrick, 27, on NASCAR's fan base will only be known some time in the future, as the date of her NASCAR debut remains in limbo. Based on what happens in this test, in future tests and even up to the moment of her ARCA debut, Patrick and the JR Motorsports' hierarchy has yet to decide if Patrick will run the Nationwide Series opener at Daytona on Feb. 13 or wait until a week later, on Feb. 20 at California Speedway, where the team has guaranteed she'll attempt the race.

He laughed and said that decision could come as late as two days after the ARCA race, when the Nationwide teams begin to arrive in Daytona.

"How comfortable she is, that's going to be [what tips the scales on a decision to do Daytona]," Eury Jr. said. "Drafting's a big deal. We're going to get another day [Sunday] and then come down here for this race and see how she drafts. And if she feels like it's something she wants to do -- you gotta do it sometime.

"That's what we both said, but just make sure it's the right time. If it's later on in the year she wants to try the speedway racing in the Nationwide [Series, we can]. Because I mean, [Daytona's Nationwide race] is a Cup race. There's guys that have been doing this for 10 or 15 years and they know all the games and all the cards.

"To put her in a situation where she's going to come down here and maybe finish 21st, I don't want to break her confidence like that and put her in a bad situation. So if it takes not running that race, that's what we'll decide to do."

And that could be right at zero hour.

"I can do it last-minute," Eury Jr. said. "We got six cars sitting there that we had ready this year that are sitting there on the floor so if she comes back on Tuesday and says 'hey, I want to be in Daytona,' we'll load the truck and come on down."

Eury Jr.'s biggest concern is sure to be allayed with time, which he said has been in short supply to this point.

"The one worry we have -- but it ain't even a worry because I know she'll do it -- is we'll have to accelerate the time it takes us to get [acclimated] to a track," Eury Jr. said. "It's took us a full day, pretty much, for her to be comfortable. When we get to a Nationwide race we've got three hours. But that comes with experience, and this is her second day in a stock car, so by no means am I expecting her to be A-game right now so as we test more during the winter, and we've got one more day here she'll get better and better with experience."

Patrick had actually turned plenty of laps around Daytona, but never on the full 2.5-mile oval. She first came here for the 2006 Rolex 24, when she raced with Rusty Wallace. She participated in an exploratory IndyCar test in 2007, a track spokesman said. And then she raced for NASCAR owner Richard Childress in the 2009 Rolex.

On Friday, the "Danicamania" that has enveloped all aspects of the sport even touched NASCAR president Mike Helton, who came across the street from his new office building to take in some of the ambience and joke with the media.

Before he did, he chatted with former NASCAR executive Mark Dyer, who now works with IMG, the agency which is engineering Patrick's NASCAR excursion.

"I saw you guys all huddled up, so I figured I'd stop by and see what all the hoopla was about," Helton said. "She's got a good deal of experience with a following.

"It's always -- whether it's Juan Montoya or Sam Hornish Jr. or whoever it might be, Tony Stewart -- decides on NASCAR to participate in, we consider that a positive thing for us.

"You take someone with the profile that Danica has and the attention that she attracts, that doesn't hurt, either. It doesn't hurt us to have good story lines, and this certainly is a good story line."

Of course, the danger is, as Patrick herself said, of under-producing on her expectations.

"I hope everybody's expectations can be reasonable," Helton said. "That's important. She's got obviously her own goals and expectations, and that's the important thing. JR Motorsports, [co-owner] Kelley Earnhardt has got their [expectations] that they all want to come together with, but I think it's important for the rest of us to be reasonable with ours."

The funniest thing for any parent who's ever attempted to teach a child to drive a vehicle with a standard transmission is the almost painful dragging of the clutch and revving the engine Patrick does while trying to get going from a standstill. It's no worry to Eury Jr.

"That's something you'd expect to see," Eury Jr. said. "You'd expect her to stall it and she ain't stalled it once. You've just got to slip the clutch because these things have got such a high gear. We did do a couple practices coming down pit road and she did awesome there, getting the car stopped, so we're right on schedule."

Danica at Daytona: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3