Danica Patrick's strong run derailed at Charlotte

Danica Patrick appeared to be on her way to a top-10 finish in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, but her solid run was derailed when she was involved in an on-track incident at lap 247. 

With less than 90 laps remaining in the race, the driver of the No. 10 GoDaddy Breast Cancer Awareness Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) was running in 11th place and quickly gaining ground. However, her efforts were halted at lap 247, when she was hit in the left-rear fender by Joey Logano. The contact with Logano sent Patrick into the outside retaining wall in turns three and four, causing extensive right-side damage. 

Patrick was able to drive her car to pit road to the attention of the crew, who quickly went to work to repair the right-side damage. She pitted three times under the caution flag, and the quick work by the crew helped her to stay on the lead lap in 19th place. 

Despite the repair work, the damaged right side played havoc with the car’s handling and Patrick struggled with an extremely loose GoDaddy Chevy until the caution flag waved at lap 266. Patrick once again made a series of pit stops so that the crew could repair her car’s splitter and put a new piece of sheet metal on the right-front quarter panel in hopes of helping her handling issues. 

Unfortunately, the damage was too much for Patrick to overcome. She finished the race in 26th place. 

“It was such a bummer for the GoDaddy team,” Patrick said. “We were having such a good night, and I really think we had a car that was capable of a top-10 finish tonight, and that got taken away from us for really no reason. It’s just really frustrating. Charlotte has not been good to me.”

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