Patrick finds more speed, at ease in final session

Tops 182 mph in afternoon while focusing on drafting

By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
December 20, 2009
06:00 PM EST

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- If the progress Danica Patrick showed drafting in an ARCA Series car on Sunday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway continues, the IndyCar Series regular might make her Nationwide Series debut during Speedweeks 2010 after all.

Her JR Motorsports crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., on Saturday had said the decision to do the Daytona Nationwide race on Feb. 13 or to make her NASCAR debut a week later at California Speedway would rest with Patrick, who made her first tentative laps in the draft on Saturday.

Danicamania

More Danica

But Sunday afternoon, Patrick greatly picked up her pace, got closer to other cars in the draft and showed no hesitation in altering her line, exploring how her car "sucked up" or was pulled-in by others. On her in-car radio, she even discussed potential race-altering strategies while practicing moves she might use in the Feb. 6 ARCA season opener.

In total, Patrick again ran more than 100 laps for the day, with less than 20 coming in the car Eury Jr. on Saturday called his backup. The primary car covered more than 90 laps, and logged Patrick's best lap of the weekend, 49.443 seconds, an average speed of 182.028 mph, early Sunday afternoon in the draft.

Eury Jr. and his team put a spin on things Sunday morning when Patrick switched her primary allegiance to the car that had been the designated backup for two days. But Eury achieved his goal of finding more single-car speed.

On her 16th lap of Sunday morning in the primered Chevrolet numbered "88A," Patrick hit 49.934 seconds, her best single-car run of the weekend at an average speed of 180.238 mph. On her 22nd and final morning lap in her fully-painted No. 88, its best was in 50.224/179.197.

Her fast lap and the final of the morning in the backup car, which at the time was eighth on the time sheet and once again second-best of the eight women who ran Sunday morning -- as usual behind Alli Owens (49.559/181.602) -- would have been 12th-best in the 2009 race lineup.

Patrick started Sunday afternoon in the 88A, making a short opening run with a best lap of 50.324/178.841. She immediately switched to the "primary" car and started with a 14-lap run, which culminated with a seven-lap drafting session that included her best lap of the weekend to that point, the 182.028 mph effort turned while running with ARCA veteran and former superspeedway winner Mark Thompson, Joey Coulter and Matt Lofton.

Later in the day, Patrick was hardly slowed by a persistent sticking throttle and was even game to try some bump-drafting, both receiving and delivering.

"Tony Jr. wants me to bump [somebody]," Patrick told her spotter, car owner Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s regular spotter, T.J. Majors before she went on-track at mid-afternoon. Patrick said she had "some hesitancy" in encouraging bump-drafting, but didn't decline to do it, even when her crew told her they had set it up for five-time Daytona ARCA winner Bobby Gerhart to push her down the backstretch during one run. They drafted together, but never touched.

Patrick was comfortable enough to joke with Majors while sitting in her car. Majors had complimented her on how good her corner entry looked, particularly into Turn 3 when he said, "you look like you're getting into 3 a lot better a car-length off those guys; and it looks like you're getting a lot more comfortable."

"Part of the comfort was the throttle was sticking," Patrick said, "and I had to really pay attention not to run up on people. But I was able to tell how much closer I could run to them [than on Saturday, when she was three or four car lengths off their bumpers]."

Along with getting quicker, Patrick also displayed consistency in the draft. At the end of a 31-lap run just before 2 p.m., other cars came and went in the draft, finally leaving Patrick drafting with Leilani Munter, who's spent several years trying to break into stock cars but who's also done a limited number of Indy Lights races.

In the five laps they drafted together before Patrick hit pit road, the discrepancy in Patrick's lap times, from fastest to slowest was only .124 seconds, with her quickest lap in 178.862 mph.

Her competition certainly noticed Patrick's commitment, which left her fifth on the final time sheet.

"I think Danica's done a 500-mile race this weekend," one of them said over the radio network being monitored. "You know you always said experience is everything," a teammate replied.

Indeed, on the weekend's three days, even though Friday was cut to just four laps by rain, Patrick ran no less than 227 laps, or 567.5 miles. On Sunday, the 92 laps she registered on ARCA's live scoring monitor were considerably more than the next-most number run by Coulter, a 2009 ARCA rookie who covered 59 laps.

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