Is good luck finally going to find Danica Patrick at Daytona?

Danica Patrick couldn’t help but smile at a question from a fan on Friday afternoon.

It’s the question that everyone in the racing world was asking — is she still friends with Denny Hamlin, the driver who spun her out in practice Wednesday and again during the second Budweiser Duel race Thursday night, which almost cost her a spot in the Daytona 500?

“That’s probably the best question anyone could ask,” said Patrick, drawing laughs during a Q&A session with fans at the speedway’s midway.

“I would like to say yes, but maybe not as good of friends.”

Patrick then recalled running into Hamlin during driver introductions before Thursday’s race. In practice the day before, Hamlin had spun her out and ruined her primary car for Sunday’s race.

Patrick thought maybe she’d at least get an “I’m sorry” from Hamlin.

“Nothing. Nothing,” Patrick said. “He’s like, ‘Hey.’ OK … and then he goes and dumps me again.”

That didn’t sit well with Patrick, who got into a very heated and very public confrontation with Hamlin after the race. Patrick complained that Hamlin got too close for the second consecutive day, while Hamlin said her car was too loose.

Hamlin gave an apology of sorts on Twitter, saying: “On the streets of real life cops always give the ticket to the car behind in a accident. We will use that logic on this one. #tooclose #mybad.”

That wasn’t much comfort to Patrick a day after. She admitted being “hot and bothered” by the entire situation. But who wouldn’t?

Patrick almost found herself on the outside looking in at the Daytona 500 field, NASCAR’S “Super Bowl.” Only a late flurry along with help from teammate Kurt Busch allowed her to pass eight cars over the final two laps and secure a spot in the prestigious event.

“I can’t say all the words I was thinking out loud,” Patrick said of going into the green-white-checkered finish. “It was somewhere along the lines of, ‘Screw it. I’m going for it as hard as I can. Any lane that’s open, punch the middle, the top … I am going to be like Days of Thunder, I’m going to bump the wall to get by people and I almost did.”

In the end, simply making the cut is all that mattered for Patrick and her No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet team.

“It was stressful for me, which means it’s exciting for you,” said Patrick, who will start 20th. “It ended up being a cool story I guess as to how the night would go, but I was more mad that I was so close to not making it than I was happy that I did make it because I don’t want to be in that position again.

“We need to have a better qualifying session and we, by all means, need to finish better in the championship so we don’t have to be in that position again. So it’s motivation to not be in the scenario I was in.”

That leads to the question, of course, as to where Patrick is in her development as a stock car driver. She is going into her third full season in the Cup series, and has yet to have a top-five run.

It hasn’t hurt her popularity; however, it would seem that she needs to start making more strides toward contending in order to remain relevant in the coming years.

That’s a positive mind-set for Patrick to have at this point in career, and she’s certainly not ready to write off her chances of moving up the field in Sunday’s race.

The Daytona 500 is a race that anyone can win, as they say, and the results suggest that’s the case. Trevor Bayne came out of nowhere to win it four years ago, so it’s not too far-fetched to think things could fall right for Patrick for once this week.

“Man, we went for practice today [in my third car of the week] and my spotter told me to shut it off, you’re smoking,” Patrick said. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God. What else can go wrong?’

“Luckily it was just a water hose that came loose and it was steam, but we joked that our bad luck is gone and it comes in threes. Hopefully that’s all over with, and it’s all upside from here. I can only hope and pray that all of this is to make this story that much better in the end.”

This story was originally published February 20, 2015 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Is good luck finally going to find Danica Patrick at Daytona?."