“Danica-mania” took on a whole new meaning during the Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen. It had nothing to do with swimsuits or historic victories. Just ask Scott Dixon’s pit crew.
Danica Patrick was involved in a spectacular pit road accident on lap 41 when she accelerated coming out of her pit stall and flew into the inside pit wall and into the stall of Dixon’s Target Chip Ganassi team, nearly striking some of Dixon’s crew who had just serviced Dixon’s car a few seconds earlier.
Following the incident, Patrick immediately threw her hands up in the air and was very apologetic and upset at herself, expressing so on the in-car radio as she sat in the car on pit road.
“Unfortunately during my final pit stop of the day, I hit a tire leaving the pit and the car locked up which caused me to hit the No. 9 pit,” said Patrick. “Fortunately I made no contact with anyone.”
Her apology was met with an explanation from a member of Scott Dixon’s crew: She spun when her rear tires crossed the painted yellow line on pit road.
“He just said I hit the paint (line on the track) and the car swapped ends,” she said of the crew member who wasn’t identified. “What are you going to do?
“Paint is always slippery.”
Still, she was embarrassed that she was too aggressive trying to beat Andretti Green Racing teammate Hideki Mutoh out of the pits.
“I just kept the tires lit,” she said. “I was running some different gears . . . and I was trying to beat people out of the pits.
“It was stupid.”
Patrick slid through Dan Wheldon’s pit box and struck a piece of the team’s equipment to draw a penalty. She finished 14th.
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