NASCAR Cup Series

31 Moments: No. 28 -- Danica scores career-best finish at Kansas

Published Dec. 4, 2014 9:11 a.m. ET

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Tom Jensen

Editor's note: For the month of December, FOXSports.com will count down 31 moments that defined the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. This is No. 28.

For a brief moment, it looked as if Danica Patrick may have finally figured out how to wrestle big, heavy, ungainly NASCAR Sprint Cup Series cars after growing up racing light, agile open-wheel cars.

Patrick's apparent breakthrough came at Kansas Speedway, where on May 10, she drove her No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet SS to a then career-best finish of seventh place.

Afterward, NASCAR's only full-time female Sprint Cup driver downplayed the significance of the finish.

"It was a good weekend and I feel like I'm feeling the car better and better," said Patrick. "But I don't think it was a light switch for me. It was just a weekend that so many good things happened in the race and we ran with such good cars and we were passing such good cars, that I think that for me, it gives me confidence, for sure."

Patrick said the key going forward would be to keep digging.

"If we keep doing what we're doing and keep our heads down and not get flustered ... not every single weekend is going to be like that," said Patrick. "It's not like that every single weekend for anyone. But we'll have more of those, for sure."

As for expectations going forward, Patrick said she didn't care about anyone else's, period.

"I never think about those," Patrick said. "Those aren't important to me. They don't affect me. They don't make me go any faster. I just have to make sure I keep my confidence up and they don't make me go any slower. Weekends like that are good signs and they show hard work by everybody and they make you excited to do it more."

Alas, Patrick would have just two more top-10 finishes all season long and ended the year by finishing 15th of worse in the final 11 races en route to a 28th-place points finish. That was actually one position behind where she finished in her rookie season of 2013.

Will 2015 be the year Patrick truly makes progress? Time will tell, but that clearly will be one of next season's biggest storylines.

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