Danica Patrick had an amazing start to the season after winning the pole at the Daytona 500, but in the past few weeks she had had frustrating performances and that continued on Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Sprint Cup Series Food City 500 and now she is gearing up for this weekend's Sprint Cup Series at California at Auto Club Speedway.
According to the Sporting News, Patrick had a tough time with the hard turns at Bristol, as he car was driving tight throughout the day. Kasey Kahne took home the checkered flag for the first time at Bristol, while Patrick fell behind five laps and finished the race 28th, a far cry from her top 10 at Daytona.
Patrick hasn't had the best of luck at the track in Bristol for her career, as she wrecked with 66 laps remaining at last year's event. The race had a number of cautions and tensions were high between drivers Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin, who had quite the week himself after getting fined $25,000 by NASCAR for making disparaging comments about the Gen-6 car.
"We've been really loose the last couple of races so we wanted to make sure we were tight," Patrick said. "So we decided that was our accomplishment today was to aim to be tight, and we were. So we probably didn't need to and, in fact, we probably kind of knew we were overcompensating. But we just never really got it completely freed up like we needed to. It was better later in the race but by then the damage is done."
Patrick has set a number of milestones this season, including becoming the first woman to lead laps at the Daytona 500 as well as being the first woman to run full time on the Sprint Cup. Patrick was able to move up two spots in the standings and now has a week to prepare for the Auto Club Speedway event in California.
"I've never been there in a Cup car at Fontana, so (I'll) just get up to speed, be smart and there are a lot of things that I have to work on at this point in time," she said.
Patrick followed up her great week at Daytona by having a few rough races in a row, including when she lost a tire and crashed into the wall in Phoenix and then falling behind in Las Vegas after getting a pit violation.
Kahne took his 15th career victory and his first at the track on Sunday, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. added another top 10 finish to his season, bringing the total to four. Hamlin led the laps but tapered off at the end, eventually spinning out Joey Logano, which turned into a shoving fight in the pits afterwards when Logano confronted Hamlin at his car.
Patrick started the race in 41st and Tony Stewart ended the day at 31st close by after losing a tire and crashing into the wall early on. Patrick has been one of the biggest reasons for NASCAR's high ratings and has had trouble over the past few weeks after her start at Daytona. She has also made headlines this season for her relationship with fellow driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr, who she raced with on the Nationwide series.
