September 20, 2010
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
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Most of the fanfare that surrounded Danica Patrick when it was first announced that she would be running a limited Nationwide and ARCA schedule with JR Motorsports, has died down somewhat.
The results that she has posted in the Nationwide Series have not been what she would have preferred, but she knew coming in that there would be a bit of a learning curve. In her first seven races, her average finish is 31st position. While Patrick has just one win in Indycar, she is accustomed to posting better results.
"It was all a blur," Patrick was quoted as saying in an Associated Press article on espn.com. "Mostly, it's just been emotional because I've had to deal with not having the good results that I'd like. IndyCar has been a bit of a tough season. I've had probably some of my best races I've ever had, but I've also had a lot of mediocre ones."
However, her focus in her limited stock car schedule has been on getting seat time, getting acclimated to the cars and just finishing races.
The best finish of her stock car career came this weekend at Dover in the K&N Pro Series East race where she finished in sixth place, her first top-10 finish in a stock car.
The K&N Pro Series may be a lower tier series, but it is still stock car racing where no doubt all of the drivers have more experience than she does. For her to be able to post at top-10 is a step in the right direction. Most importantly, she knows that she still has a lot to learn and is taking advantage of her time behind the wheel.
"There was a heck of a lot of laps," she said in the same article. "I learned about closing rates and I learned about how to set people up here, and I learned about just the timing of everything, which is really important with these cars."
Yet in this weekend's Nationwide race, she qualified 42nd and went a down a lap after just 17 circuits of the track. She posted a 35th place finish after blowing a right front tire and slamming into the wall. Her crew repaired the car and she returned to the track to log some laps.
Regardless of whether Patrick posts spectacular finishes, she is learning with every lap behind the wheel. Expecting her to have phenomenal success immediately is setting the bar too high.
Making a successful transition from open wheel racing to stock car racing is something that is going to take time for anyone. The best open wheel racers in the world have struggled in NASCAR. Some have tried and given up, but the key to anything in life is perseverance.
She has only committed to a part time schedule this season, so the experience that she is able to get is going to be limited. She still has two more seasons on her Indycar contract with Andretti Autosports, so more than likely, it is going to be at least that long before fans can expect to see her full-time in NASCAR. If they do at all.
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