Danica Patrick had high hopes of a solid finish on the Watkins Glen International road course, where she used to race in her IndyCar days.
VIDEO: Danica Patrick Crashes At Watkins Glen, Gets Worst Finish Of NASCAR Career
But she didn’t even make it through one turn of Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race before her day was ruined.
On the first turn of the first lap, Ryan Truex went off into the grass and then came back up onto the track. The moment he returned to the racing surface, Patrick was there and plowed into his No. 20 car.
"I was just following the car down into the corner and right at the last second he came up on the track right in front of me," she said. "I suppose in retrospect, I should have either slowed down or gone a bit wider. But it's so hard to know in those moments if they're going to come back out on the track and be fine, but he just stopped.
“The car in front of me got right through, but I didn’t. I wish I would have done it differently. But that’s the way accidents happen and you just don’t have much time to react.”
Patrick’s JR Motorsports team brought the No. 7 car to the garage to try to repair a leaking radiator. But after replacing it, Patrick said there was water coming out of the exhaust pipes and the engine wouldn’t turn over.
“It’s unfortunate, because we really felt like we could have a strong finish in the Go Daddy car today,” she said.
Because Patrick was involved in a wreck even before the start-and-park cars pulled off the track, she finished 43rd – the worst finish of her NASCAR career. Her previous worst finish was 38th, which came in both the Daytona 500 and the Daytona Nationwide Series race in February.
Here’s a video of the incident:
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