Danica Patrick qualifying run

[Rushville]

In 4 quick laps on Pole Day at Indy, Danica Patrick showed that she has poise, maturity, accountibilty, and guts all at the same time.

With Tony Kanaan already holding the pole position after turning in a 4-lap average of 227.556 mph, Danica had her shot at immortality when she took the track for her qualifying run. After her two warm-up laps, she took the green flag, and you would normally expect a rookie to just keep it off the wall and get a good run in, especially since they changed the qualifying format so you have multiple chances with the same car evn if you complete the run without waving it off. But Danica charged hard into the first turn. Too hard in fact as the car wiggled a bit coming out of it. She let off the throttle and straightened out the car, turning in a 224.9 mph for her first lap. It was clear at that point that she could not beat Kanaan after a first lap like that. But she charged on.

She went on to get faster in each of the next three laps. In fact she turned in the fastest of all the single laps of the day with her fourth lap of 227.860 mph. She finished with a four-lap average of 227.004 mph which qualified her fourth which will be the inside of row 2 for the race.

Ryan Brisco was the next driver to attempt after Danica. He must have been feeling the pressure of having a woman beat him because he put his car into the wall coming out of turn two on his first lap. After seeing that, everyone who thought Danica had made a rookie mistake with her little wiggle in turn 1 suddenly realized that maybe she actually made a hell of a save instead.

After having the afternoon practice session to think it over, Danica and her team decide that the risk may not be worth the reward of pulling that fourth place qualifying run off the board and going for the pole.

Danica, showing a level of maturity and accountibility not seen in many 23 year-old Indy rookies said, "I feel like I wasted a pole car today. But on the other hand maybe I saved it."

There are not many people in this world who will ever get the chance to see if they can save a car that starts to slide on you as you're going 227 mph. But Danica got that chance on Sunday and she proved she could save it. I have to give her serious credit for that.