Danica the one lending support to Ricky

Patrick, speaking Tuesday at a media event at Charlotte Motor Speedway, said that the two drivers — both in their third full season in the Sprint Cup Series — have agreed to celebrate their independent successes, something she’s convinced is coming for Stenhouse’s Roush Fenway Racing team.

“I think every team goes through their ebbs and flows of good and bad, and you’ve got to figure them out and I know that his team is working on it,” said Patrick, currently 15th in the series standings in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10 Chevrolet. “So by all means, I just reassure him that you never forget how to drive, you’ve just got to get the stuff underneath you that you need. I think Stewart-Haas is an example of what happens when you get better people and equipment underneath you. A couple of years, we couldn’t hit our you-know-what with both hands, but now we’re obviously the champions from last year as a team, so it takes hard work.

“Even when you’re not doing well, you’re working hard and I’ve experienced that plenty of times in my career. It just means you haven’t found it yet, but I’m sure they will. And then we’ll have to worry about them.”

Stenhouse’s most recent top-10 finish came last August at Bristol Motor Speedway, a dry spell that includes failing to qualify for last October’s event at Talladega Superspeedway. The road has been just as tough this season for teammates Greg Biffle and Trevor Bayne in the Roush Fenway camp, with just one top-10 finish — a 10th from Biffle in the Daytona 500 — among the three.

In the preseason, officials with the venerable NASCAR team weren’t shy about the need to rebuild. After the team could do no better than Stenhouse’s 27th-place qualifying effort last month at Auto Club Speedway, a frustrated Biffle minced no words, saying the organization was “dying a slow death.”

While Stenhouse seemed to be modestly righting the ship with a 12th place at Phoenix and a 15th at Auto Club, his race at the series’ most recent stop at Martinsville Speedway brought involvement in three caution flags and a 40th-place finish for his RFR No. 17.

In sharp contrast was Patrick’s solid seventh-place run at Martinsville, one position below her career-best.

“I would say that he’s been in about as good of spirits as possible,” Patrick said. “He had actually a good start to the year — he qualified on speed from Daytona, so he was locked into the 500. From that point on, I decided that instead of me being upset with being 30th or whatever I was, I was like, we’re going to celebrate the good days because I felt like that was the only complaint I had is that we don’t usually have good days at the same time. So instead of celebrating one, we usually just step back and let the other person have their bad day, but I’m going to flip it this year — and you know what, if I have a bad day and he has a good day, we’re going to celebrate because the year just gets way too long when you just are down all the time.

“I think he’s done a good job with that and he continues to work hard. He believes what I believe in, that hard work pays off.”
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