Danica Patrick traded paint with fellow driver Landon Cassill on Sunday at Kansas Speedway and lost. Fighting for position near the rear of the field in the middle of the race, Patrick admitted it was “frustration” that caused her to get tangled up with Cassill but resulted in her wrecking her own car. Cassill says he was baffled by Patrick’s racing style.
“It’s still halfway through the race,” Cassill said according to FOX Sports. “(Patrick) is starting behind me, and she makes it three-wide going into (Turn) 1. I was wondering what the hell she was doing. Then she’s holding us all up. … She was crowding me … It’s not how you race for 30th on Lap 150 or whatever lap it was. I got her loose and then door-checked her down the front stretch.
“I didn’t hit her because she was in the way. I hit her because she was driving like a maniac for 30th when the race was playing into all our favors. … All we had to do was let the race come into our hands and not wreck ourselves in the process.”
Cassill acknowledged that his car wasn’t as fast as he would have liked all afternoon, but he felt that there was no need for Danica to be driving that aggressively with so much race left. Patrick said Cassill hit her earlier in the race and that she needs to stand up for herself when something like that happens multiple times, but she admitted her execution was poor.
“If it’s one time, I can imagine it’s frustration, but it’s been quite a few times with him,” Patrick explained. “At some point I have to stand up for myself, so this doesn’t happen with other people. I chose today. The bummer about it is that my car is out, and he’s still out there going, so I’ve got to work on how to do that.”
Danica finished 32nd and destroyed the car that her team intended to use at another race in two weeks. We have seen some examples of Patrick’s temper in the past, but obviously she would have been better off trying to control it on Sunday. Cassill finished 18th, so he clearly got the last laugh.
