License to Thrive

Racing with the Big Boys

 

Making her NASCAR debut, Patrick ran outside the top 20 for most of Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway before getting caught up in a 12-car wreck just past the race's halfway point. Patrick, who became the first woman to win an oval-track race in a national touring series last year in Japan, drives for the NASCAR Nationwide Series team co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Earnhardt also crashed in the Nationwide race (both he and Patrick was unharmed) but came in a close second  place at a much-delayed Daytona 500.

 

Patrick finished sixth in last week's ARCA event at Daytona, and decided to move her NASCAR debut up a week to the Nationwide opener at Daytona. Patrick is scheduled to run the next two Nationwide races, at California and Las Vegas.