Patrick's Nationwide breakthrough proves she's making progress

Danica Patrick made history Saturday. Again. We should be used to it by now, but her fourth place in the Sam's Town 300 Nationwide Series race at Las Vegas caught everybody off guard. It's the highest finish by a woman in a NASCAR national series race. Patrick did it in her 16th start, all in Nationwide.

Patrick has made a career of making dramatic breakthroughs. In her rookie Indianapolis 500 in 2005, Patrick roared into the national consciousness by leading with seven laps to go. She settled for fourth, at the time the highest finish by a woman in the 500. Patrick also was the first female to lead the race. Sports stardom and endorsement deals followed. She became a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and a GoDaddy girl in Super Bowl commercials.

But it took her nearly three years to win in the IZOD IndyCar Series, at Twin Ring Motegi in April 2008. She was the first woman to win a closed-course race in a major racing series, big-time history. But in the period between her fourth at Indy and that victory, there were those who thought her fame was not justified by her talent. The reality was that Patrick was a young driver learning her craft and compiling competitive finishes and her team, Andretti Autosport, was steadily losing ground to Roger Penske's and Chip Ganassi's teams.

Patrick began exploring a move into NASCAR last year, running 13 races in Nationwide. She's with one of the best teams, JR Motorsports, and a top crew chief in Tony Eury Jr. and the wise Tony Eury Sr. in the same garage, too. Patrick openly admits she was disappointed in her results, with a best of 19th in the season finale at Homestead-Miami. But she was in a difficult situation, bouncing back and forth from types of cars as different as night and day. It's a learning curve Sam Hornish Jr. and Dario Franchitti found very difficult, too.

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