Danica Patrick The Glen

Danica Patrick has driven in five NASCAR Sprint Cup Series road-course races and has shown improvement on that type of track as she competes in her third full season at NASCAR’s top level.

So, the driver of the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) is hoping for her best NASCAR Sprint Cup road-course race yet in Sunday’s Cheez-It 355k at The Glen, which takes place at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International.

Her best road-course race to date came in June 2014 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, where she qualified 11th and finished 18th.

She has plenty of experience at Watkins Glen, but only three starts have come in NASCAR, with two in Sprint Cup and one in the Xfinity Series.

Six of Patrick’s starts at The Glen came in the IndyCar Series and unfortunately won’t offer much assistance. As if the incredible difference between a stock car and an Indy car weren’t enough, the IndyCar Series used the longer version of the Watkins Glen road circuit, which includes the famous “boot” portion of the track. Her performances were OK – her best start was seventh in 2009 and her best finish was eighth in 2006. 

Patrick did compete in the 2012 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen, but she finished 43rd after Ryan Truex spun in front of her at the start. She could not avoid his spinning car and made heavy contact with his machine.

In two starts at Watkins Glen in Sprint Cup competition, Patrick finished 21st last year and 20th in 2013. Last August, she started 43rd in the team’s backup car due to an accident in practice and managed to gain 22 positions during the race, even though the car sustained damage during a lap-57 accident. The previous year, she started 35th and twice managed to avoid multicar accidents en route to a 20th-place finish.

As the Sprint Cup Series returns to Watkins Glen this weekend, Patrick is hoping for much better results this week and hopefully can gain the best road-course finish of her career.

TSC PR