Danica Patrick, driver of the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), finished 40th in the season-opening Daytona 500 after a hard crash ended her night 145 laps into the 200-lap race.
Patrick, who led once for two laps, was running midpack on lap 145 when the cars of Kevin Harvick, Brian Scott and Aric Almirola got together exiting turn four and Almirola’s machine was sent into the SAFER Barrier on the outside retaining wall. Almirola’s No. 43 Ford then shot across the track and hit Patrick’s GoDaddy Chevy in the rear, causing her machine to veer to the right and make hard contact with the concrete retaining wall on the outside of the frontstretch.
Her car came to rest in the infield grass, too heavily damaged for her to continue. She was checked and released from the infield care center.
“I think more than anything I am just upset because the GoDaddy car felt really good and it was the best car that I had all Speedweeks,” Patrick said. “It seemed like we could catch whoever and it seemed like we could move around, make lanes and just move around and move forward at the end of the day. I felt like everything was going pretty well, so it’s just upsetting. It’s a bummer, but you know that is the excitement of speedway racing that anything can happen, and it was unfortunate that I was on the short end of the accident. But that is the kind of thing that happens, and I appreciate everyone sticking around and watching, and we will go get them at Phoenix.”
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