The cooldown lap was anything but as Danica Patrick (7) puts Sam Hornish Jr. (12) into the wall at Talladega Superspeedway. Patrick was retaliating for Hornish squeezing her during the final lap. / By Butch Dill, AP
TALLADEGA, Ala. (USA TODAY) Danica Patrick likely will face no discipline for pushing Sam Hornish Jr. into the wall on the cool-down lap of the Aaron's 312 at Talladega Superspeedway.
NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said Sunday officials would speak to Hornish and Patrick further to ensure there wasn't future retaliation but that punishment was unlikely because they were clean drivers without a history for rough driving in the Nationwide Series.
Patrick was upset after being squeezed into the wall on the final lap of Saturday's race. Shortly after the checkered flag, she hit the rear end of Hornish's No. 12 Dodge, turning it into the Turn 1 wall.
NASCAR planned to talk to the drivers again before next weekend's race at Darlington Raceway.
"They both banged on each other after start finish line," Pemberton told the Sporting News . "It didn't go unnoticed. Those are two good competitors, clean competitors. We'll just make sure it doesn't go any further."
NASCAR has punished drivers for intentional wrecks in the past. Last year, Kyle Busch was parked for the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway after crashing Ron Hornaday Jr. under caution in the Camping World Truck Series race.
Pemberton said the skirmish between Patrick and Hornish wasn't similar to the Busch incident because there was no history between the drivers, and every situation is considered differently.
"They both made mistakes after the race, and we'll talk to them about it," Pemberton said. "But you can't compare that to Kyle Busch."
Hornish, a Penske Racing driver, said his right-front tire began deflating after making contact with Joe Nemechek on a green-white-checkered restart. Coming off Turn 4, the tire went flat, and Hornish, who was being pushed by Elliott Sadler, said he couldn't turn, so he claimed he was unable to maneuver below Patrick as she took the high lane to the checkered flag.
"I was doing everything I could do," said Hornish, who finished 12th. "I was trying to wave off Elliott to get him to quit pushing me. I couldn't hold (the car) down where it was at, and I ended up getting in the wall before we ever even got to the start-finish line."
Hornish said Patrick (13th) hit him on the cooldown lap "while we were still going 160 mph. I went over and said, 'Hey, we had the right-front tire that went down, and I don't appreciate getting turned after the race was over.' She said, 'Oh, I know your style.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, because I'm going to drive into the tri-oval wall way before the start-finish line to prove any kind of point.'
"I don't know. She's got her head a little bit mixed up about what's going on out there, I guess."
When asked whether she knew Hornish had a tire going down, Patrick said, "I don't know if he did or didn't. But he apologized, so "
The rivalry between Hornish, 32, and Patrick, 30, dates to when they were teenagers. In a go-kart race in 1995, Hornish has claimed Patrick wrecked him entering the final corner. They raced against each other for three seasons in the Izod IndyCar Series, and Hornish implied when he left the series for NASCAR in 2008 that he felt unappreciated by the series, which heavily promoted Patrick as its most popular driver.
But they also have become friends off the track with Patrick consulting Hornish before her move to NASCAR and inviting his family to stay at her Scottsdale, Ariz., home when NASCAR raced at Phoenix International Raceway in April 2008.
Talladega marks the second restrictor-plate weekend of the season for NASCAR, and this one proved just as eventful for Patrick as the season opener at Daytona International Speedway, where she won the Nationwide pole and ran up front in a Cup qualifying race but also crashed three times.
Patrick soaked up the party atmosphere in the Talladega infield, wearing beads to a group interview Friday and later tweeting photos from the raucous scene on Talladega Boulevard.
On Saturday, she became the second woman to lead a lap in a NASCAR race at Talladega and ran in the top five for much of the race with JR Motorsports teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Cole Whitt.
But she grew frustrated late in the race finding drafting help.
"I just have to get my arms wrapped around some more friends out there, so that I can have some more people that want to work with me and go to the front because I've got a fast car," Patrick said. And thats all I got to say about it...
updated by @johnny-mallonee: 12/05/16 04:04:08PM
