Danica Patrick Quietly Showing Improvement In 2015 NASCAR Season

Sunday’s day/night’s epic NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol provided a little bit of everything. Long rain delays, wrecks, cautions, injuries, contenders finishing at the back and underdogs sneaking their way toward the front — but quietly, there was a record broken as well. And it was broken by one of the sport’s most recognizable faces.

Danica Patrick kept the nose of her No. 10 Chevy fairly clean through the chaos and used the backdoor to secure a ninth-place finish on Sunday. It was the sixth top 10 finish of her Sprint Cup career, breaking Janet Guthrie‘s record of five top 10s for a female in NASCAR’s premier circuit.

Anyone who watched the race Sunday knows Patrick probably didn’t have a top-10 car, but while some of the best in the sport were getting involved in crashes or having issues on pit road, Patrick was quietly clicking off laps. It’s hard to believe Patrick could do much of anything under the radar with the media scrutiny she has faced since her arrival in NASCAR, but this season the light bulb may be coming on and it’s not getting much attention.

Consider that if the season ended today, Patrick would be firmly in the Chase as she sits in 13th in the Sprint Cup standings. She has put together an impressive four-race run in which she has all top-20 finishes and a pair of top 10s, including at Martinsville and Bristol, two short tracks that are notorious for breeding crashes and drama.

Patrick will have another opportunity to take advantage of a short track this weekend as the circuit shifts its attention to Richmond. But it’s impossible to limit her potential to just short tracks, as she has top 10s at Kansas and Atlanta, 1.5-mile tracks, and one at Daytona, a restrictor plate track as well.

Quiet as it may be, the prospect of Patrick becoming a factor in the sport has to be a salivating thought for NASCAR higher-ups. For a sport in which ratings and attendance are always a concern, Patrick, the sport’s second most recognizable figure behind Dale Earnhardt Jr., can’t turn the corner soon enough.

Ryan Pritt is a NASCAR writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on twitter @RPritt, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.