It would appear that the Daytona 500 wasn’t a fluke after all for Danica Patrick.
Back in the February season-opener, the Sprint Cup rookie was a threat to win on the final lap before settling for an eighth-place finish. And tonight’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona brought more confirmation that she has a firm grip on restrictor-plate racing, as she rose as high as second and stayed in the lead pack in the race’s second half.
Unfortunately for her, a potential Top-10 run was scratched in the final moments as she and David Gilliland made contact. Patrick was turned around and a multi-car crash in the tri-oval began as Jimmie Johnson took the checkered flag just ahead.
After the incident, Patrick explained that she was looking to follow Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the finish.
“Junior and I had a good run through the middle and then up high around [Turn] 4,” said Patrick, who was credited with an 14th place finish. “It felt like I ran just along the wall but it could have been me that came down in front of the No. 38 [Gilliland].
“It definitely wasn’t what I was trying to do at all. I was just following the No. 88 [Earnhardt]. So, if that’s what happened, then I definitely apologize. I lost spots doing it.”
Patrick fell back in tonight’s early stages but caught a break that enabled her to get into the Top 10 by pitting just before a caution came out on Lap 71. She moved into the Top 5 after another set of yellow-flag stops around Lap 100, and at Lap 108, she was running right behind Johnson.
Following through on her intent to be more aggressive in her Daytona return, Patrick hooked onto the back of Earnhardt during the green-white-checkered finish (which she started from ninth position). She found herself sliding across the finish line in the end, but that didn’t cause her to second-guess her decision, however.
When the checkered flag is looming, it’s every driver for themselves, after all.
“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do on those last laps,” she said.
Hunter Lawrence defends Haiden Deegan after controversial block pass at Detroit
Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.
Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.
On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.
One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.
After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.
The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.
Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.
Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports
“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.
“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”
As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.
But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.
A block pass by Haiden Deegan led to a series of events that eventually led to Jordon Smith failing to make the Main. – Feld Motor Sports
“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.
“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”
Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.
“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.
“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”
The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.
