The Danica Patrick has “turned the corner” story line is starting to run out of mileage (pun intended). Today she finished 23rd, after starting 28th. And although 23rd place is anything but exciting, it’s actually pretty good by her standards. It’s above average, as she’s now 28th in the NASCAR Cup series standings.
Bummer, since May was actually a pretty good month for her, as she took some major steps forward. Before ending not so well at Charlotte.
“It’d be interesting to see where we would have finished had we not had that penalty,” said Danica Patrick after only her fourth Sprint Cup start at Dover.
“It didn’t kill us, but it’d be interesting to see. We were pretty rough at the beginning of the race, but we got it better in the later going. Actually we’re running really good laps. We’d just lost a few laps by that point and couldn’t get them back.”
Guess who won? Yep. Jimmie Johnson to score his 68th career Sprint Cup victory. It was his second straight win and his ninth at Dover, the most of any NASCAR driver, past or present. Yeah, this is getting tired, predictable and repetitive. I guess just copy and paste the same thing every week now: Danica Patrick finishes in the 20s and Johnson wins.
Yawn.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on national talk radio. Banks, a former contributor to NBC Chicago and the Washington Times, has been featured in numerous outlets including NFL.com, Forbes and the History Channel. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)