Danica Patrick, Jeff Gordon looking for another Daytona highlight
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Jeff Gordon could ponder the fact that he's the active wins leader at Daytona International Speedway — with six — and talk himself right into thinking that the Coke Zero 400 represents a prime opportunity to win his first race of the season and virtually assure that his final year at NASCAR's highest level will include a Chase for the Sprint Cup berth.
But the four-time series champion knows better. He has not won at the 2.5-mile track since capturing his third Daytona 500 in 2005. He has just two top-fives here since 2010.
All he can assure himself of, he said, is a fast Hendrick Motorsports car and the ability to concoct a plan to put himself in position to win. And then see how it goes.
"I come into restrictor plate races feeling like we have very fast race cars and that we have a chance to come out of here with a great finish, if not a win, as much or more so as the field," Gordon said. "And at the same time, that thought and confidence is followed right up with, when was the last time I finished one of these races?
"So, all you can do is just come up with the best plan that you can possibly put in place, knowing that it's going to change at any moment, but that you're going to stick with what you think it going to get you to the finish and hold it wide open and hope that when they start wrecking around you, that you somehow squeeze through it. But that's just the way you've got to approach these races."
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Danica Patrick hasn't collected any trophies from Daytona or any other NASCAR track, but rarely does a race pass here without it sparking, at least momentarily, the tantalizing possibility that her first Sprint Cup win could occur at NASCAR's most celebrated track.
The third-year fulltime Cup driver has a lengthy history with the 2.5-mile speedway, the site of the Coke Zero 400 on Sunday. Her first test at a NASCAR-sanctioned track after beginning the transition from open wheel racing occurred here in 2009 in the ARCA series. Her first start in the grass roots series was subsequently at Daytona early in 2010 — she finished sixth — and she made her first Xfinity Series start (2010) and her Cup series debut (2012) at the restrictor plate venue.
In 2013, she became the first female to win a pole and lead laps under green in a Cup race when she held the front for five laps and finished eighth in the Daytona 500. She replicated the finish in the rain-shortened Coke Zero 400 last summer.
On Friday, Patrick provided another glimmer by leading the final practice (198.133 mph, 45.424 seconds) followed by Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kurt Busch, defending series champion Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart, and Hendrick Motorsports partners Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson, all of whom had practiced in team packs.
The whole thing provided the backdrop from some levity in season in which she enters the race 19th in points with just two top-10s and Stewart is 26th with one.
"I don't know exactly when it happened, but I can remember a point in time in the practice when we were in that 15-to-20-lap run with the other Hendrick cars where we were …," she began, before being interrupted by Stewart, who ambled past in a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops heading for a team debrief at the front of Patrick's hauler.
"Blah, blah blah, backed into it," Stewart said, reveling in the instigation.
"I know, I agree," Patrick said, then continued, "… where we were 1-2-3- 4 up on the top lane. But Tony was the last one in the group and he was fourth so it doesn't make sense. Normally, the last car is the fastest. The fact we were all up there, yeah, there wasn't a lot of big-group drafting going on, but I think all of our cars were pretty fast when we did single car runs."
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Unfortunately for Patrick, she will start 28th on Sunday by virtue of speed in the first practice after qualifying was rained out on Saturday.
"Guys like Tony have no problem going from last to first. I find that challenging," she said.
A strong run for Patrick would be nothing but viewer-garnering good news for NBC Sports, which begins a decade-long, 20-race-per-season Sprint Cup run beginning in the Coke Zero 400. It would be especially welcome, with the 7 p.m. United States vs. Japan Women's World Cup final on FOX, certain to overlap with the green flag around 8:20 p.m.
A week after winning his first race of the season at Sonoma, Kyle Busch needs a strong finish to perpetuate a statistically daunting march to the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
His chances were dented Friday when his No. 18 Toyota was wrecked just nine minutes into the first practice session. Brad Keselowski turned Busch, either with a slight bumper nudge or by fouling his aerodynamics, causing a crash that sent Busch, Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin to back-up cars. Busch likely needs to average a finish of 15th in the 10 remaining regular season races to reach the top 30 in driver points in order to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
He missed 11 races after sustaining a broken leg and foot in the first Xfinity Series race of the season Daytona. Busch will start 13th in a backup car.
Joey Logano will start 34th trying to become the sixth driver to sweep both Daytona races in the same season, joining Jimmie Johnson (2013), Bobby Allison (1982), LeeRoy Yarbrough (1969), Cale Yarborough (1968) and Fireball Roberts (1962).
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