It’s Her Day, but His Victory
By VIV BERNSTEIN
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A day after a horrific crash took the focus away from racing and threatened to turn Nascar’s season-opening showcase, the Daytona 500, into an afterthought, Danica Patrick did what she does best. She put the focus right back on her.
While Jimmie Johnson made a statement with a victory in the 55th Daytona 500, Patrick made history by becoming the first woman to lead a lap in a race in Nascar’s top series. Johnson, who outraced the field in his No. 48 Chevrolet after a late caution, showed he could be the driver to beat for the Sprint Cup title this year. And Dale Earnhardt Jr. left a similar impression, finishing a strong second.
Johnson collected $1.585 million for winning his second Daytona 500 title.
“It is just awesome, there’s no other way to describe it,” he said. “Just a strong racecar. I feel like the speed our car had in it allowed me to really have control of the race there late. I felt like I was sitting on something all day and was just ready to have some fun when it counted, and it did.”
Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, got his first Daytona 500 win; he had been suspended by Nascar in 2006 and was not at the track when Johnson won the race the first time.
“To finally be able to come down here and be a part of this is definitely a huge dream come true,” Knaus said.
Sunday might have been Johnson’s day, but this was surely Patrick’s week. She had created headlines all week after becoming the first woman to start from the pole in the Sprint Cup series, and she recorded another milestone when she led twice for a total of five laps in the 200-lap race on the way to finishing eighth, another record for a woman.
Not that Patrick seemed overly impressed.
“I think a stat that I found more interesting is only 13 people, including me now, have led Indy and Daytona,” said Patrick, who became the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500, in 2005. “I thought that was a much cooler stat for me.
“I’m honored. But, again, these are things that just happen along the way. I’m on the quest to be the best driver, run up front, get to victory lane. These things happen, and I’m proud, but they’re not the ultimate goal.”
Indeed, it is perhaps more significant that Patrick showed Sunday that she could race with the best in Nascar, lap for lap. She was in the top 10 all day.
“She’s going to make a lot of history all year long,” Earnhardt said.
Patrick said she was actually disappointed with the finish; she was third going into the last lap but was shuffled back in the final dash to the checkered flag.
Earlier Sunday, the talk was still focused on a last-lap crash in the Nationwide Series race on Saturday, when Kyle Larson’s racecar went airborne and crashed into the catch-fence, sending debris into the stands. There were 28 injuries, but only two people remained hospitalized Sunday. Both were in stable condition.
That promising medical report allowed racing, and Patrick, to once again become the story. Patrick even succeeded in taking some of the focus off what was largely a questionable debut by the new Gen-6 racecars. The cars were designed to look more like showroom models, but there was very little green-flag passing for the lead as most drivers were content to drive in single file for much of the race. That led to some uneventful racing.
Even though the drivers were unwilling to gamble and risk getting into a wrecks, there were a few multicar crashes that helped thin the field of contenders.
Patrick fell to ninth after pitting during an early caution, but she moved back among the leaders at the right time, avoiding a major crash behind her that ended the hopes of two of the favorites in the race: Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart. Both were collected in a nine-car crash when Kasey Kahne’s No. 5 Chevrolet was tapped from behind by Kyle Busch as the cars raced in a pack.
The 2012 Cup champion, Brad Keselowski, was also caught in the crash, but he was able to get back out and remain on the lead lap. Keselowski nearly came back to win the race before being passed by Johnson moments before a caution in the final laps. That turned out to be the most important pass of the race. Keselowski finished fourth.
As for Stewart, he won the Nationwide Series race Saturday and entered the 500 as one of a handful of top contenders. It remains the only major race he has never won.
“If I didn’t tell you I was heartbroken and disappointed, I’d be lying to you,” Stewart said.
The early crash was the first of two major wrecks in the race. Nine more cars were part of a crash with 63 laps to go, including that of Carl Edwards, who has had perhaps the worst start to the season of any Nascar driver in recent memory. Including test sessions at Daytona, Edwards has been involved in five crashes already.
The two-time Daytona 500 champion Matt Kenseth had what appeared to be the car to beat before engine trouble forced him out well before the finish. Shortly after that, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch, who was running second at the time, went out because of an engine failure.
As it turned out, Patrick was one of only three drivers to stay with the leaders all race long, joining Johnson and Greg Biffle, who finished sixth. And she proved at least one person wrong with the effort. The actor James Franco perhaps inadvertently knocked Patrick when he gave the famous call to start engines, saying, “Drivers and Danica, start your engines.”
But as Patrick demonstrated Sunday, she is a driver. And when the spotlight is at its brightest, Patrick shines just a little bit more. She showed that in the IndyCar Series. And now she is showing it in Nascar.
NOTES
Families of victims of the December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., along with first responders and town leaders, attended the Daytona 500 and were given a standing ovation when introduced at a driver’s meeting before Sunday’s race. Michael Waltrip drove a specially numbered No. 26 Toyota with a green bow on the front to honor the 26 victims. ... The honorary starter was Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who waved the green flag to begin the race.
