Drama finds Danica in nail-biter at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – All that remained for Danica Patrick to qualify for Sunday's Daytona 500 was what should have been three simple laps.

That's when she noticed Denny Hamlin in her rearview mirror. It was the same vision she saw in practice Wednesday just before Hamlin spun her out, wrecking her primary car and making a stressful qualifying process into perhaps, she said, the most nerve-racking race of her career.

Now here he was again, her friend, her golfing buddy, her neighbor in the infield lot here at Daytona, only he was running close, closer, too close again to her rear bumper.

Next thing she knew she was spinning around on Daytona International Speedway, clipping cars and slashing through the infield grass, the dream of running Sunday flashing before her eyes, the dread of failing her team, her fans and her sponsors racing through her mind.

"I just can't believe it," she shouted to her crew through her radio. "I can't believe Denny wrecked me again."

There are plenty who still wonder about just how good Patrick can be as she begins her third full season in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series. There has never been a question about her will, though, and it was on full display Thursday in every imaginable way.

Patrick's No. 10 wasn't much to look after getting spun and slammed, but it could still move forward. That was enough.

So after some on-the-fly repairs, she went back out with three spots or so to make up in order to qualify and two laps to do it in. Thanks to a big push from teammate Kurt Busch, she rallied, passed eight cars and finished 10th, good enough to make it into Sunday's race, albeit in what will be a backup car to the backup car.

Then, when Hamlin approached her on pit road after climbing out of her beat-up car, she went right at him for nearly ruining the whole thing. Again.

"Dude, you give me nothing," Patrick said. "You spun me around."

"Your car is too loose," Hamlin argued back.

"Nobody else did it to me," Patrick said.

"Nobody else gets close to you," Hamlin said.

"Everybody gets close," Patrick said, refusing to back down. "You don't need to turn me. That's what you did."

Hamlin denied ever making contact, even doubling down on that claim via Twitter some two hours later. Patrick's car owner, Tony Stewart, jumped in and told Hamlin he was wrong.

"Tony I never touched her," Hamlin shouted. "I never touched her. What do you want me to do, not run close?

"Watch the video," Stewart said.

"Do you not want me to run close?" Hamlin continued.

"You just don't need to get so close that it turns me," Patrick said. "I like you, but I just don't understand Denny."

Soon they were separated but not before turning primetime qualifying here into a rather intense, and quite watchable affair. What is often just a formality in racing was must-see reality TV. No one from NASCAR minded the drama.

"I am sure it was incredibly exciting," Patrick noted later.

Missing out on the Daytona 500 would've been a disaster for Danica, who is still fighting for respect and still feels a significant obligation to her primary sponsor, Go Daddy. "It's the biggest race of the year and we need to be in it."

To have it happen because the same person wrecked her twice, on consecutive days, would've made the entire thing worse.

"Twice makes it twice as bad," she said. "Or even more."

She admitted to being nervous all day about the do-or-die nature of these Budweiser Duels, 150-mile sprints where she needed a top-15 finish just to survive until Sunday.

Due to the unpredictable nature of pack racing on a 2.5-mile superspeedway, which leads to wild wrecks, there is only so much control anyone has. And then it happened. And then she was getting the blame for it, and from a fellow driver who she has great trust in, great appreciation for always supporting her even as she's crashed the party here as the often lone female.

"I treat her as equal on the race track," Hamlin said later. "I'm not going to say, 'She's Danica, so I have to give her some extra room.' You're here in the Cup Series, you have to be able to handle those situations."

"Like I said, we're friends," Patrick said. "I like Denny a lot."

Still, she couldn't agree with his position.

"I am confident other cars get very close and things like that don't happen," she said. "I've [logged] thousands of miles at this speedway racing now and I haven't found that to be a problem. I just think that he's wrong. I think that he's too close …

"We just have a difference of opinion."

Later, Hamlin tweeted out an apology of sorts.

Whatever it was, Patrick wasn't budging an inch. Not after the race and more importantly not in the heat of it. With two laps to qualify, she found a way to qualify.

"Screw it," she said she told herself as her crew sent her back out, "I am just going to be desperate."

Desperate got her into the Daytona 500. Determined got her standing her ground to Hamlin.

When it was all over, a 15-minute span that featured a big wreck, a Hail Mary comeback and a nationally televised argument, she could only sigh.

"End of the day," she said, "I'm in the race."

It's never a dull moment for Danica. Now the big race Sunday awaits.

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