For Patrick, 'crash-fest' debut may be more difficult (cont'd)

And yet, the Nationwide race could very well seem like a Sunday drive compared to the event in which she's chosen to make her stock-car debut. The annual ARCA race at Daytona has developed a reputation for being somewhat wild and chaotic, full of crashes and the occasional driver sent to the hospital. The cars, most of them cast-off Cup vehicles, are often very good. The drivers run the gamut from experts to unknowns to novices. The closing rates between best and the worst in the field can be astronomically fast, and the accidents can sometimes be spectacular.

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I think at the end of the day it would be nice to have a good result, but it's probably going to be more off the feeling that I have, and how many little mistakes I made, and how comfortable I am with the different situations.

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-- DANICA PATRICK

Never was that more evident than last year, when the Daytona ARCA event featured six multi-car pileups that sent three drivers to nearby Halifax Heath Medical Center. The guy who got the worst of it was Patrick Sheltra, who with four laps remaining was spun from behind, and then T-boned hard by another car zooming at near-full speed even though the caution had come out. It took nearly an hour to extricate Sheltra from the car. He was eventually diagnosed with a fracture in his back, and was out for two months.

While that's an extreme case, crazy things just seem to happen in Daytona's ARCA event. The 2008 edition featured a massive pileup that left cars strewn all over the race track. In 2007, Tim Russell and Damon Lusk were each turned head-on into the wall in the same accident. In the drivers' meeting Thursday, officials showed a crash montage video to try to get the competitors' attention. Granted, there are crashes in every form of auto racing, at every level. But given the history of the Daytona ARCA race, Patrick is walking into a minefield.

"I recently heard that it's a crash-fest," she said. "I didn't know that. Now I do. I think that just makes me realize, you know, I've got to be smart out there. Everybody runs the yellow line all the way around the whole race, and you just kind of stay in line and wait for something to happen at the end. I realized at the test how hard it is to pass, so maybe that's why it's a crash-fest.

"Also, you run so much closer in these cars than in IndyCar. In IndyCar, a couple of lengths back, and you're as close as you're going to get, and you're probably on your way to passing someone. But in these cars, I had to close that two-car length to a half-a-car length gap, and you feel a little claustrophobic being that close to a car turning into a corner, because I'm just not used to that distance. That's another thing I've noticed, and somebody said that's why the accidents are so much bigger, because everybody is completely nose-to-tail. That makes sense. I'm just going to have to learn. If I'm involved in an accident, if I make a mistake, I'll learn from it. I can't change that."

It's been a relatively quick transition since that first stock-car test, when Patrick proudly kept the vehicle running after everyone warned her she'd stall it out. In a marathon practice session Thursday that was nearly five hours long, Patrick made 29 laps, more than any other driver, and her top speed of 180.542 mph placed her 17th among the 53 ARCA competitors who took part. Saturday she'll roll off the starting grid 12th, one spot better than nine-time series champion Frank Kimmel. Those are strong numbers from someone with zero stock-car races on her resume. Juan Montoya, who made a similar transition from open-wheel cars, wouldn't be surprised if she fared just as well in the race.

"I'm sure Danica will be fine in the ARCA car, and even in the Nationwide race, because you run wide-open," the former Indianapolis 500 champion said. "And if they have a good setup in the car, she will be fine. It is going to be interesting to see when we start getting to other tracks how she will run."

There's a lot of attention on Patrick during these Speedweeks, to the point where a solid debut in the ARCA race on Saturday could trump even the Budweiser Shootout exhibition scheduled for later in the day. But ultimately, her performance Saturday -- or even next weekend if she chooses to participate -- can't be considered an accurate barometer of what she might be capable of in a stock car. As Montoya suggests, upcoming runs at Fontana and Las Vegas, tracks where the driver does more work than the car, are the ones to watch. And the real test will be in June, after Patrick has returned from her four-month break to race IndyCars, and we discover what affect that hiatus will have on her stock-car aspirations.

But all of that can wait. Right now Patrick prepares to debut on stock-car racing's biggest track during stock-car racing's biggest month, a strategy surely as much about marketing as it is about competition. She said she's too busy to be nervous, what with appearances and travel and NASCAR Media Day and now finally laps in the car. Before leaving Charlotte she practiced pit stops, trying to get used to life without the button that limits pit-road speed in IndyCars, and instead learning a primitive language of tachometers and dashboard lights. Things like that, things she's never done before, are what make her anxious. In the car, she's comfortable. It may look different, it may sit higher and have a wider power band, but it still has four wheels and goes fast.

And now, finally, the real thing. Saturday, everyone at last begins to get some idea of what Patrick is capable of. All she has to do is steer clear of the wreckage -- which in the Daytona ARCA race, is much easier said than done.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.