Danica Patrick became the first woman to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup pole Sunday by qualifying fastest for the 2013 season-opening Daytona 500.
Patrick pushed her #10 Stewart-Haas GoDaddy Chevrolet around Daytona’s 2.5-mile banked oval in 45.817 seconds, hitting a top speed of 196.434. Patrick’s top speed was the highest since 1990, and she is the first Rookie of the Year candidate to win the pole since Jimmie Johnson in 2002
This was not Patrick’s first Daytona pole: in 2012 she qualified fastest for the NASCAR second-tier Nationwide Series Daytona race, the DRIVE4COPD 300. Only one other female driver has ever won a NASCAR pole: in 1994, Shawna Robinson won the pole for a Nationwide race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“I appreciate the recognition but it really falls ninety percent on Tony [crew chief Tony Gibson] and his guys and everybody who gives me the car to go out there and be fast and maybe ten percent on me” Patrick told NASCAR.com
“I think it shows how well prepared Tony and everybody was and how strong the Hendrick engines are and how good the new Chevy SS is.
“Tony’s given me a good car. I’m going to do my best to keep it clean, keep it out of trouble, and get a feel for the traffic throughout the day, and hopefully put myself in a position, position-wise and knowledge-wise, to be able to do a do a good a job and have a chance to bring it home where it started at the end of Sunday.”
Patrick seemed comfortable to be making racing history once again.
