No fairy-tale ending for Danica Patrick at Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – There was no fairy-tale ending for Danica Patrick.

There was no checkered flag; no trip to Victory Lane and no Cinderella story in her final NASCAR race.

Instead, Patrick wound up a casual bystander after her No. 7 GoDaddy Chevrolet got caught up in a crash in Turn 3 halfway through the 200-lap race that ended her day prematurely.

Chase Elliott tried to block Brad Keselowski but instead, it turned into a seven-car accident that would wind up engulfing Patrick in its wake.

“It was just a superspeedway accident,” a disappointed Patrick said. “We weren’t the fastest car out there but the car was competitive and that’s what’s important.

”I’m just sad that it ended that way.“

Patrick said she hopes she was able to deliver fun to all of the people who were out there watching her race.

”I love to fulfill the storybook but we didn’t get to do that today,“ she added.

Patrick, 35, wraps up her time at Daytona with 12 career starts with her best finish at the Daytona 500 being eighth back in 2013.