Click to set custom HTML
Danica Patrick’s season has been like a kick in the gut, and it was more than just a kick in the gut that made it a rough day as she had to feel like she was getting hit both the face and the back Saturday in the Nationwide Series race in Montreal.
It all started so well as she led 20 laps and seemed poised to challenge for the win in the NAPA Auto Parts 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
While leading the race, Patrick ran over a shoe thrown on the track. That possibly caused damage and a few laps later, she had a bar that holds the rear-end housing come loose, which eventually required her to pit three times under caution.
She got back out on the track before going to the garage on lap 55 of the 74-lap race with a broken axle and ending any hopes of winning.
The JR Motorsports driver finished six laps down in 27th place, but thought she had a chance until the broken axle because she was done pitting for the day and could have made it the rest of the way on fuel while the rest of the field would have had to pit.
“We were fine and got back out there and … we basically were the leader because all the leaders had to come in and we were done stopping,” Patrick said in an interview with the Motor Racing Network after the race. “But in the end, when the axle broke, that’s all she wrote.
And the shoe? Well that was just another part of a season where Patrick—who remains 11th in the Nationwide Series standings despite her finish—seems to have found trouble and it came just a week after she ran into a spinning car on the first lap at Watkins Glen.
“I ran over a shoe. … What can you do about luck?” Patrick said. “It was just one of those things. Hopefully it can turn right for us sometime soon. That would be nice.”
It all started so well as she led 20 laps and seemed poised to challenge for the win in the NAPA Auto Parts 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
While leading the race, Patrick ran over a shoe thrown on the track. That possibly caused damage and a few laps later, she had a bar that holds the rear-end housing come loose, which eventually required her to pit three times under caution.
She got back out on the track before going to the garage on lap 55 of the 74-lap race with a broken axle and ending any hopes of winning.
The JR Motorsports driver finished six laps down in 27th place, but thought she had a chance until the broken axle because she was done pitting for the day and could have made it the rest of the way on fuel while the rest of the field would have had to pit.
“We were fine and got back out there and … we basically were the leader because all the leaders had to come in and we were done stopping,” Patrick said in an interview with the Motor Racing Network after the race. “But in the end, when the axle broke, that’s all she wrote.
And the shoe? Well that was just another part of a season where Patrick—who remains 11th in the Nationwide Series standings despite her finish—seems to have found trouble and it came just a week after she ran into a spinning car on the first lap at Watkins Glen.
“I ran over a shoe. … What can you do about luck?” Patrick said. “It was just one of those things. Hopefully it can turn right for us sometime soon. That would be nice.”