Danica Patrick’s Nationwide season has been defined by all sort of setbacks, from problems practicing, difficulty getting qualification, late-race wrecks and even a shoe that she ran over while leading.
She has only two top-10s through the first 29 races for JR Motorsports, and has yet to crack the top 20 during the first seven races of an abbreviated Sprint Cup slate for Stewart-Haas Racing, where Patrick will run full-time next season for team owner Tony Stewart.
Now she comes to Kansas, where she'll be running both series this weekend, hoping that some of the success she had here in the IndyCar Series rubs off on the recently repaved track.
"Ultimately, I'm disappointed with the results," Patrick said before qualifying 41st for Sunday's Sprint Cup race. "I wish there were better results on the record books, but there are a lot of drivers that can say that at the end of the year."
The season couldn't have started out any better. Patrick won the pole for the season-opening Nationwide race at Daytona, and finished eighth a few weeks later at Texas.
Never did she think that'd be the high point of the season.
She blew an engine at Fontana and crashed at Iowa, and for one frustrating stretch this summer wrecked in five of the 12 races she started. Her head-first crash into the inside retaining wall at Daytona in July led to a 31st-place finish after leading laps earlier in the race.
At Road America, Patrick was battling with Jacques Villeneuve on the last lap when they got together, causing her to spin out. Villeneuve finished sixth and Patrick ended up 12th.
