Like many before it, Danica Patrick's final NASCAR race ends in disappointment

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The end came sooner than expected, sooner than she and her faithful following of fans had hoped.

Danica Patrick's final ride in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series was in a golf cart -- to and from the infield care center at Daytona International Speedway.

The towering scoreboard provided slight content if not context -- Patrick finished 35th in the field of 40. That she'd run as high as 13th in Sunday's season-opening Daytona 500 while avoiding early incidents was left unsaid.

"Tony Eury Jr., my crew chief, did an awesome job," Patrick, uninjured, told reporters soon after departing the care center. "The whole team did a really good job."

The first half of her Danica Double, which will conclude with a return to compete in the Indianapolis 500 later this year, came together quickly, she noted, adding "that's a tall order to get a car ready for a superspeedway that's competitive."But it was [competitive]," she stressed. "But it just wasn't meant to be today."

Proof of that sat inside the garage, her garish green Go Daddy-sponsored No. 7 Chevrolet parked perhaps 300 yards away. It looked every bit like a car that had just been swept up in a multicar collision at nearly 200 mph. It was bent and spent.

Crewmen surrounded the vehicle while fans milled about nearby, hoping for a glimpse of Patrick or perhaps a piece of sheet metal history to take home.
Eury, stepping away from the cutting and sawing, said the team's goal had been to finish the race. "A solid top-10," he said, "would be great.

"A win, that would be a story," he said, grinning.

"The whole deal coming down here was we were going to have fun, we were going to try to run the best we can. [Danica] had a lot of confidence I would bring her a good Daytona car."

Eury and the team did just that. Patrick had a carefree week prior to Sunday, competitively speaking. She posted the 28th-fastest speed overall seven days earlier in time trials, finished 14th in her qualifying race on Thursday and her practice times on Friday and Saturday were steady if not spectacular.

Speed is relative at Daytona, where restrictor plates rob engines of horsepower and rob drivers of the ability to pull away from each other. Here, the slowest can be fastest under the right circumstances and with the right drafting partners.

Source: espn