NASCAR Kansas 2014: Teammate’s advice pushes Danica Patrick to career-best finish

Danica Patrick had her best outing as a Sprint Cup driver finishing a career-best seventh in Saturday’s NASCAR race at Kansas Speedway.

Competitive throughout the 5-Hour Energy 400, Patrick ran as high as third pulling off a brazen pass of Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. But it was a pass of defending series champion Jimmie Johnson that Patrick found most enthralling.

“Honestly, the most rewarding part of my night was probably when I drove around the outside of the No. 48 on a restart.” Patrick said. “That was probably my most rewarding thing of the night. I say that with all the respect in the world. It’s a big deal because he is Jimmie Johnson.

“Aside from that I was really just overall proud that we stayed up front all day. That was the biggest thing.”

Patrick credited her Kansas performance to a new car that allowed her to get good restarts and maintain speed over long runs.

The seventh-place finish came in Patrick’s 57th race in NASCAR’s premiere division, and bested her eighth-place effort in the 2013 Daytona 500 where she became the first woman to start on a pole in a Cup race.

Now in her second full season, Patrick has mostly struggled in her transition from IndyCar to NASCAR. She entered Kansas ranked 29th in points with an average finish of 26.6 on the year.

An hour-plus conversation with Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kevin Harvick Friday greatly encouraged Patrick. Harvick implored Patrick to “quit thinking about it and smash the gas.”

And “smash the gas” is exactly what Patrick did Saturday, starting ninth and running in the top 10 for the majority of the night.

“It’s really cool when you have teammates that are unconditional like that that want to help you,” Patrick said. “And when everyone is better and we all get better, it pumps the team up and everybody wants it even more.

“When the race started it was about finishing the weekend off right and just staying up there. You know you are going to go up, you are going to go down a little bit and we sure enough did that, but we more than held our own through the whole race.”

Only female drivers Sarah Christian and Janet Guthrie have finished better than Patrick in a Cup race. Christian placed fifth at Heidelberg (Pa.) Raceway in 1949, while Guthrie was sixth at Bristol Motor Speedway in 1977.

“I’ve always believed in myself,” Patrick said. “I’ve always believed that in the right situation, that I can do it.

“I guarantee you we’re going work even harder now. It’s not just sitting back. We’re going to work harder because we love where we’re at and this is what we work for. When you taste it you don’t want to let it go.”