Danica Patrick Finishes 21st at Texas

Danica Patrick and the No. 10 Nature’s Bakery Chevrolet SS team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) scored a 21st-place finish in Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

 

After the start of the race was delayed nearly two hours by rain, Patrick lined up in the 26th position for the green flag. She was able to pick up several spots at the start of the event but remained just outside of the top-20 for much of the first half of the race. The rain-cooled air made track conditions for the race drastically different from practice, so the team made a number of wedge and air pressure adjustments throughout the event to help improve the car’s handling.

 

Patrick worked her way up to 19th at lap 180 and remained in the top-20 until several cars elected to take the wave-around following a lap-211 caution. Crew chief Billy Scott attempted to utilize pit strategy to put the team in position to gain ground on the final two runs of the race, but the caution flag waved at lap 278, just three laps after Patrick had pitted for what the team planned to be their final stop of the race. She was able to take the wave-around and restart from the 25th position at lap 284.

 

In the final 50 laps of the race, Patrick picked up several positions to score a 21st-place finish.

 

“That’s not the finish we wanted tonight,” Patrick said. “We struggled a bit early in the race, but Billy and the guys did a great job of making changes that definitely helped make the car better in the second half.”