NNS: Solid Run For Patrick Ends In Wreck

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NNS: Solid Run For Patrick Ends In Wreck

Danica Patrick tangled with James Buescher in the NASCAR Nationwide Series CampingWorld.com 300 at Auto Club Speedway...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted October 10, 2010 Fontana, CA

Danica Patrick, driver of the #7 Tissot Chevrolet, stands in the garage with a crew member after crashing during the NASCAR Nationwide Series CampingWorld.com 300. (Photo: Getty Images)

One thing Danica Patrick has enjoyed about her NASCAR experiment is the fact that there are fenders on the car.

She got a little too much of James Buescher’s fender on lap 141 of the CampingWorld.com 300 on Saturday at Auto Club Speedway.

Running 17th with less than 10 laps remaining in the race, Patrick wrecked on just the second lap after a restart where she was 13th. Her car hit the wall hard and she was done for the day, leaving the JR Motorsports driver with a 30th-place finish.

“I drifted up and kind of got into him on the lap before and I didn’t mean to,” said Patrick, who completed her IndyCar Series season last week. “I thought I was clear. It’s my fault. My spotter was helping me out, but I just for some reason thought that the car that went in front of me was clear so I accidentally got into him.

“On that [next] lap, he was staying outside and I got really close and I was sliding up. We are all pushing really hard out there because it is the last few laps and it gets so much more racy. I came off of him – I watched the replay – I came off of him and we were going for a bit and it looked like he turned me. I guess that’s the way it goes.”

Buescher said it wasn’t intentional, and that Patrick didn’t leave any room on either lap.

“The very previous lap, I was squeezed between her car and the wall, hitting both at the same time,” said Buescher, who was in his second start for Braun Racing. “There was no more room for my car. She was trying to pass me, but not leaving room for [us].

“The next lap around, it was the exact same situation – squeezed between her and the wall. You’re racing hard, you can’t just drive across people’s noses.”

The last time at California, Patrick struggled tremendously as she finished three laps down in 31st.

In the race Saturday, she ran in the top 20 all day, got down a lap, got the free pass and was running solid lap times.

But the results will show a finish of only one spot better.

“It’s just really frustrating,” Patrick said. “Obviously we had a good day. I just wanted to follow through with it. I just wanted to come to the end and have a good day and we had a good car and we got our lap back and everything was fine.

“Everybody looks at results, and I still have a [30th] to show for it, but this one should have been much better. I was so much more racy. I was passing good cars, cars that I thought were going to take a long time to learn how to get, and get as good as they are.”

But she couldn’t get by Buescher without the contact, which also collected Buescher teammate Ricky Carmichael.

“It was definitely not intentional,” Buescher said. “You’re not just going to lift because somebody’s going toward the wall when they’re inside of you. You have the lane when you’re that far along inside of them.

“You can’t just drive over the nose. … There’s a lot of times when you lift. But when you’re in the closing laps of the race and trying to get all you can get – everybody in the field is trying to get as much as they can. My guys worked hard to get my car going and we were going to go get us a solid finish.”

At least for Patrick, she knows she will have another opportunity soon for a solid finish. While she has competed in only eight Nationwide races this year, the 28-year-old Patrick began a stretch of six consecutive Nationwide races with California.

“I know in my heart that I was having a good day, so we’ll just take that and we’ll take what we learned this weekend to have a good car,” Patrick said. “I was very relieved, obviously with Dover in my mind from the last [Nationwide race], it was tough.

Danica Patrick is ready for Year No. 2 in NASCAR. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“The one run that I did [at Dover], the car wouldn’t turn and it was just hard to drive. We were good on the long run. I was very, very confused as to what I need in the car to be good from the beginning to the end of a run, and I think we’re getting closer. That was a big relief.”

Patrick doesn’t plan to talk to Buescher.

“I don’t really know how to address that,” Patrick said. “I think the best thing is for everybody to just watch the video and learn from what they see.”

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