Danica Patrick, driver of the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), was involved in a first-lap accident and finished a disappointing 43rd in the Hollywood Casino 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race Sunday at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.
Patrick, who started 29th, spun in turn one and her car made hard contact with the SAFER Barrier on the outside retaining wall between turns one and two. She was checked and released without injury from the infield medical center, but her car was too damaged to continue.
“I knew that, going into the race based on practice and everything we’ve seen from practice in Cup to the Nationwide race, losing grip was going to be not that hard to do,” Patrick said. “And so – I said that before the race even – I said make sure that we’re on top of who is on my door and who is behind me. And I knew all that was going to be happening on the start. And I had enough momentum to go to the middle because I got a run on the car in front of me but I had to wait past the start-finish line. I lifted going into turn one and all I can say is that, you know, I didn’t try and do anything. I just found myself sideways in the middle of the corner and that was it.
“It’s just a shame because it always seems to be the case (on) those weekends when things start to be going better and I’ve had lots of people say, ‘You looked good in practice yesterday,’ and felt a lot better and (crew chief, Tony) Gibson did a great job and the crew did a good job. And I have an awesome pit road crew. I knew we were going to have a good day there. Things just go wrong. And days when you’re not fast, it seems like those aren’t the days that you get the bad luck. I don’t know. If I did something wrong, I apologize to everybody on my team and GoDaddy. It’s a shame.”
While Patrick was the first, she certainly wasn’t the only driver who was involved in an accident as there was a track-record 15 cautions for 71 laps. Most of the cautions were for accidents similar to Patrick’s.
Patrick, who is competing for Rookie of the Year honors against Ricky Stenhouse Jr., finished 13 spots behind Stenhouse, who placed 30th. She remained 28th in the point standings and has 530 points, 21 behind 27th-place David Ragan.
Patrick’s SHR teammate Mark Martin, interim driver of the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet SS as he subs for the injured Tony Stewart, finished 22nd.
The third member of SHR, Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Code 3 Associates Chevrolet SS for SHR, finished 35th after being involved in an accident on lap 137. His car was able to be repaired but he completed only 188 of 267 laps.
Kevin Harvick won the Hollywood Casino 400 to score his 22nd career Sprint Cup victory, his third of the season and his first at Kansas.
Kurt Busch finished 1.14 seconds behind Harvick in the runner-up spot while Jeff Gordon, Joey Logano and Carl Edwards rounded out the top-five. Jimmie Johnson, Paul Menard, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola comprised the remainder of the top-10.
In addition to the track-record 15 caution periods for 71 laps, nine drivers failed to finish the 267-lap race.
Newman is representing SHR in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and entered the fourth race of the 10-race Chase seventh among the 13 Chase drivers, 48 points behind Chase leader Matt Kenseth. Newman leaves Kansas in 12th, 73 points behind Kenseth.
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