Patrick Scores 16th-Place Finish at Atlanta

Danica Patrick, driver of the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), finished 16th in Sunday’s Folds of Honor 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway after fighting an electrical fire and ongoing handling issues.

Patrick started the race from the 18th position and was scored in 30th when she radioed to the team that there was smoke in the cockpit of the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet. Shortly thereafter she noted that she could see flames under the dashboard. Patrick attempted to contain the fire, and as crew chief Daniel Knost radioed for her to come to pit road so the team could assess the situation, the caution flag waved. As the field made its way around the track, Patrick told the team that the fire was out but the car’s tachometer was no longer working.

The source of the flames was deemed to be a small electrical fire, which quickly extinguished itself but left Patrick without a read on her car’s RPMs. The tachometer is utilized in part to identify a proper speed for pit road, and without it a driver could easily speed down pit road and face penalties or not go fast enough and lose positions. The GoDaddy team quickly rallied together to determine a solution to the problem. They had Patrick take note of her oil pressure and used that as a rough gauge for the proper speed for pit road during the remainder of the race.

In the midst of that issue, the team faced another problem: Whenever they would put tape on the grille of the car, it either would not stick at all or it would come off in the middle of a run due to the cold temperature and humidity. In either instance, without the tape on the grille Patrick’s No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet would instantly develop a tight-handling condition.

Despite the difficulties the team faced, Patrick cracked the top-15 at lap 199 by passing Jeff Gordon and ran as high as 14th before a subsequent cycle of green-flag pit stops. The caution flag waved several laps after the No. 10 team pitted and left Patrick a lap down to the leader. She worked to put herself in contention for the “Lucky Dog” award to get her lap back, but her efforts were thwarted each time the caution flag waved again in the closing laps of the race.

When the field took the green flag with 14 laps to go, Patrick was scored in the 15th position, still a lap down to the leader. She lost a spot on the restart and noted the car was “tight off the corner” on the final run. She wasn’t able to make up any ground and took the checkered flag in the 16th position.

“I’d have to say one of our biggest problems today was that the tape kept coming off the front (end of the car),” Patrick said. “The tape was making me handle. I needed all of it. It wasn’t only running pretty cool, but the tape helps front downforce. It was pretty noticeable when the tape came off. That happened at the end and also happened in the middle of the race when I went that lap down. By all means, I was very tight in that run, but that was our biggest problem today as far as a better result goes.

“It happened, and we all kept our wits about ourselves and kept digging. I feel like we made a lot of progress as a team this weekend. I think we would’ve been on the lead lap if the tape would have stayed on. We didn’t get our lap back at the end, but we got a solid result and it’s been a decent start to the year.”

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