Cain: Martinsville holds promise for Danica Patrick – Nascar

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There is a bit of irony in Danica Patrick‘s Martinsville Speedway resume.

A racer who made international headlines and officially became a first-name only reference for nearly winning her Indianapolis 500 debut at one of the world’s most famous and grand-sized tracks, Danica bolstered her track record in many eyes by scoring one of her best NASCAR finishes (seventh) on one of stock car racing’s smallest (.526-mile), most challenging and endearingly iconic facilities: Martinsville Speedway.

Patrick, who celebrated her 34th birthday during the off-week, returns to “The Paperclip” for Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series’ STP 500 (1 p.m. ET, FS1) — site of a historic seventh-place finish for her only a year ago.

The result tied her with the great Janet Guthrie for most NASCAR top-10 finishes (five) by a woman, and two weeks later Patrick made the mark her own, scoring her sixth top 10 — a ninth-place showing at the sport’s second smallest track (.53-mile) in Bristol, Tennessee.

RELATED: Janet Guthrie’s groundbreaking racing career

In fact, Patrick’s record at Martinsville makes this challenging shortest of tracks one of her best. She recorded a 12th-place debut in 2012 — a better first try than some of the sport’s greatest champions such as Hall of Famers Rusty Wallace (who finished 15th) and Dale Jarrett (14th) and even Patrick’s team owner, three-time Cup champ Tony Stewart, who finished 20th in his first start there.

“I came from a road-course racing background and at Martinsville, I feel like you have to set passes up a little bit like that,” Patrick said. “I think it’s also a track where you have to exercise a lot of discipline. It’s easy to make mistakes. It’s easy to overdrive and try to get a little bit more when you’re passing somebody and make mistakes. Those are the two things I keep in mind when I’m there. I also think you really need a good car there, too, and Stewart-Haas Racing has always had good cars there.”

This time around Patrick’s No. 10 TaxSlayer Chevy will have a new crew chief, Billy Scott. It’s her third crew chief in four seasons as the team searches for the kind of good chemistry and juju to elevate Patrick into the post-season and give her a legitimate shot to score her first Sprint Cup victory.

MORE: SHR names new crew chiefs for Danica, Stewart

It’s already been a challenging start to 2016 with Patrick crashing in two of the opening five races. She was handed a $20,000 fine from NASCAR last week for violating safety rules because she angrily approached and gestured toward Kasey Kahne‘s car after they wrecked at California’s Auto Club Speedway. Kahne’s car hit hers while the two were racing close together.

For Patrick, this week is a real opportunity to restore her preferred path to the postseason.

By the fifth race in each of her full-time Cup seasons, she has been ranked 29th, 27th and 23rd in the standings and is now 29th again despite two top-20 finishes.

The challenge in having another new crew chief is the early season get-to-know-you time. But the other tasks that have dominated Patrick’s transition from Indycars to stock cars have become more manageable, giving her and the team great reason to be optimistic.

MORE: Danica reacts to SHR move to Ford

Especially here. Especially now.

“I’m far more confident and comfortable,” Patrick said coming into the season. “I’m understanding the car properly and able to help in making it better quickly on the race weekend. 

“Also the comfort of getting up to speed fast helps that learning curve, too. I remember there were lots of times in the very beginning when I wasn’t able to drive the car to the very limit. We’d come in and make changes based on the way that I was driving it. Once I was driving it the way it needed to be, all of a sudden we ended up back where we started. We wasted all practice for me to learn how to do it. 

“I’m much better at getting up to speed. But always room to improve. I’m still working on doing a better job at that. I think as a driver, we all tend to have our general weak areas and general strong areas. I know mine.” 

That this track has provided some of the most interesting story lines in NASCAR history is only another reason to expect better days.

Morgan Shepherd won a pole position here at 45 years old in 1987 and Harry Gant famously won the race in 1991 at the age of 51 and a half.

Eleven drivers scored their very first Cup wins at Martinsville — the last being Ricky Craven in 2001.

Notably, the majority of Patrick’s top-10 finishes have come after sub-top-20 starts. Her very best Cup showing, for example, a seventh-place finish at Atlanta in 2014, came after starting 27th.

“I mean, there’s 40-plus cars in the field — it’s twice as hard as it used to be to get to Victory Lane,” Patrick said. “It was hard to do it back when I was in IndyCar. I did it once in seven years. 

“It’s very challenging. There’s lots of great drivers. Experience definitely helps. I’m working on getting that. 

“I mean, everybody wants to win. … It’s very hard to win in Cup, it just is. Everything’s got to go your way and be right and be clicking. That’s what also makes it so great when it happens. The blood, sweat and tears to get there. 

I mean, it’s always frustrating, but it’s frustrating to just keep wanting to do better. But that’s what drives you.”