NASCAR Atlanta 2014: Danica Patrick finishes career-best 6th

It took a bit of luck in the form of two timely cautions, but Danica Patrick finished a career-best sixth Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The result surpasses Patrick’s previous best finish of seventh at Kansas Speedway in May. The best performance by a female driver in NASCAR’s No. 1 division was a fifth-place finish by Sara Christian in a 1949 race at Heidelberg (Pa.) Raceway.

Patrick appeared poised to beat Christian’s mark Sunday, as she lined up fourth on the final restart with three laps to go, but slid back to sixth.

“I am just so happy for the team,” Patrick said. “We have had pretty fast cars for quite a while now and not really great finishes to show for it. So this is for everybody and (sponsor) GoDaddy.”

Starting 27th, Patrick twice fell a lap down in the first half of the race and appeared headed for a nondescript night. But each time she dropped a lap a caution soon fell that put Patrick back on the lead via the “Lucky Dog” rule.

She credited crew chief Tony Gibson with making her Chevrolet better as the race moved along and the track conditions changed.

“It was a long night,” Patrick said. “Man, that race felt like it was 700 miles. Sometimes when you are running well they feel like that because you are hoping it stays there, keeps going well, and you keep improving and don’t lose it.

“There were definitely a couple of times late in the race when we fell back. In the middle of the race the car was very good. We took a little step back, and then it came back in the end. Tony Gibson just reset everything to where we were when we were running well.”

Atlanta was just the third time Patrick has finished in the top 10 in 25 races this season. Like Kansas, Atlanta is a high-speed one-and-a-half-mile track and affords drivers multi-grooves to pass.

Next week is a return to short track racing, though, as the series heads to Richmond International Raceway for the regular season finale. Patrick has struggled at the 0.750-mile track having never finished better than 29th in three starts.

“I have sucked at Richmond every time,” she said. “So I sure hope I can run well at Richmond now.”