DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Danica Patrick needed to finish 15th or better in the second of Thursday night's Budweiser Duel races to guarantee a spot in Sunday's Daytona 500.
She was sitting pretty, too, until her second incident with Denny Hamlin in two days damaged her car and put her in danger of missing the field.
Her Stewart-Haas Racing team worked frantically on rapid repairs and she restarted 18th with two laps to go. She was pushed all the way around Daytona International Speedway by teammate Kurt Busch to finish 10th and make the 500.
"There's a lot of stressing out. Obviously, for my team and everybody, but mostly for (sponsor) GoDaddy, it made me nervous, too," she said. "This is the biggest race of the year and they need to be in it."
The tension spilled over after the race when she confronted Hamlin and they differed on what occurred. She was already in her backup car because of an incident in Wednesday's practice, and she believed Hamlin spun her Thursday.
It led to a heated argument, with Hamlin at times appearing to try to calm Patrick, and he finally seemed exasperated when he covered his face with his hands.
"He cut across my rear bumper and pulls the back end around," Patrick said. "I get being close. But he's been going to my left rear and it just gets it light. I don't want to have these issues, but if we're going to have these issues then we're going to have to deal with them. We can't be putting ourselves out of our race at someone else's expense and nothing's happened to him."
Tony Stewart, her car co-owner, entered the fray and instructed Hamlin to watch the video.
"What do you want me to do, Tony? Not race close," replied Hamlin, adamant that Patrick's car was too loose and he didn't touch her. He maintained the spin was an aerodynamic issue.
Danica Patrick, driver of the #10 GoDaddy Chevrolet, is involved in an on-track incident during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Budweiser Duel 2 at Daytona International Speedway.Photo: Getty Images
"I try to treat everyone as equal," Hamlin said. "If you're in this Cup series, you deserved your way here and you can handle a lot of situations. I just got close to her and her car got loose again. I just tried to explain that, 'Danica, oh, it's you, I've got to stay away two feet because your car is loose?'
"I guess I just have to give more room because once I get close enough to her, her car just gets out of control."
When Hamlin and Patrick were finally separated, Busch was waiting to congratulate her. He did it by cupping her face with both hands; Busch has been accused by an ex-girlfriend of domestic assault, and he has maintained he merely cupped her face.
"It shouldn't go unsaid, Kurt was there for me," Patrick said. "Without Kurt, I wouldn't have finished where I did."
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson swept the Budweiser Duel races to give Hendrick Motorsports a 1-2-3 start for the Daytona 500. Jeff Gordon had already won the pole the season-opening race, and the rest of the field was locked in through the pair of 150-mile qualifying races.
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