Patrick impresses on stock car debut

The IndyCar star recovered from contact with Nelson Piquet late in the race and ran as high as fifth before running out of drafting partners to move further up the order.

"The car felt pretty good so that was really fun," Patrick said. "I was going side by side with people and the Go-Daddy car doesn't look very pretty but it was fun."

Patrick ran conservatively in the first half of the race, which saw many cautions come out due to multi-car incidents. She later struggled with the balance of her car but following her first pitstop and thanks to some quick work from her crew, she emerged second out of pitlane, which translated to sixth on the road as strategies came into play.

"Well you know it was good at the beginning when I was kind of hanging out," said Patrick. "There were lots of yellows obviously and then the car started to seem like it was sliding around a bit more and it feels to me like I got bumped in [Turns] 1 and 2.

"Then I kind of slid up the track and I was a little loose in the kink anyway, which probably could have been from bumping from behind too but I just couldn't hang on and I went up the track a little and I just got shuffled back and was trying to get back in."

Her race almost came to an early end when she got hit by Piquet while trying to overtake him on the inside along the frontstretch as they battled among the top-15. The Brazilian squeezed Patrick towards the inside yellow line, Patrick going sideways through the grass but managing to avoid hitting the wall.

"I was trying to get a run that I had on the inside and they say that you can't cross over the yellow line to improve your position but everyone was slowing down and I was following the one ahead of me and the guy came down over the front of me and I just held to the yellow line," said Patrick.

"I took myself out unfortunately but you can't go over the yellow line."

She pitted twice to change tyres and get repairs to her car before rejoining down in 24th as one of the last cars on the lead lap. From there she quickly recovered, running as high as fifth. With a handful of laps remaining she broke the single-file at the front but without much help she dropped a few spots.

On the last lap she battled for sixth place with multiple Supercross champion and Truck Series racer Ricky Carmichael, banging fenders before beating him to the flag.

"I thought 'shoot we're now out of this race', why would we be out of it?" said Patrick. "The guys did a good job at doing work in the pits and getting that right so the tyres didn't blow up from something rubbing.

"I was pretty excited to go from last to back to the top five again, and then I jumped up high and I was like 'whatever there's eight to go, who cares? Let's see who's coming with me.'"

Piquet, who was making his stock car debut like Patrick, found himself on the receiving end of an incident similar to the one he had with Patrick later in the race and was classified 27th. Patrick's IndyCar rival Milka Duno was involved in a multi-car crash that brought her day to an early end on lap seven.

JR Motorsports officials are expected to announce shortly whether Patrick will enter the Nationwide Series season-opener at Daytona next weekend.