Daytona International Speedway holds a special place in Danica Patrick's heart.  It's certainly easy to see why.  In 2010, Patrick made her first career stock-car start in an ARCA race at the venerable 2.5-mile track.  Two years later, the former IndyCar driver made her Sprint Cup Series debut at the 2012 Daytona 500.  The following year, 2013, Patrick made NASCAR history by becoming the first woman to win the pole for the Daytona 500 -- the sport's marquee event. She later went on to finish eighth, making history again by recording the highest finish of any woman in The Great American Race.  Then last year, Patrick's second full year in NASCAR's top division, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver matched her result from the 2013 Daytona 500 by finishing eighth in July's rain-shortened event at DIS.  Patrick, who is in a contract year with SHR and faces the imminent loss of longtime primary sponsor GoDaddy at season's end, returns to Daytona for Sunday night's Coke Zero 400 in desperate need of another solid showing at the World Center of Racing.  Ideally, of course, she'd like to nab her first career NASCAR win, and with it an all-but-guaranteed berth in the 2015 Chase for the Sprint Cup.  Two of Patrick's six career top 10s in NASCAR's top series have come at Daytona, so confidence is understandably high in her camp coming into the weekend.  "I always like going there," Patrick said. "It's where my first stock-car start was in 2010 and I actually have a lot of experience there. At the end of the day, you just need to be in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is out of your control. But I think we'll be good and hopefully have a car that can compete and win."  Patrick has two top 10s in the season's first 16 races and is 19th in points, a notable improvement over last season when she finished 28th in points -- one spot worse than her rookie season of 2013.  The driver of the No. 10 Chevrolet has been in a slump in recent weeks, however, having finished no better than 15th in eight races since a ninth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 19.  So NASCAR's annual summer trip to Daytona couldn't come at a better time for Patrick. That being said, she's no longer of the belief that Daytona and Talladega, the series' two restrictor-plate tracks, are the only places she can contend for a win.  Considering that her two top-10 finishes from this year have come at Bristol and Martinsville -- a pair of short tracks -- her opinion may have some validity.  "I feel like I'm getting better overall and able to get speed out of myself and in the race, especially on all kinds of different tracks," Patrick said. "That's more in my control and our control as a team. So the results are a little bit more matchable. You can trust what you're able to do a little bit more. On a superspeedway, who knows? To me, they were, in the beginning especially, my opportunities to have really good finishes.  "But, I don't think that's the case anymore. So, now they feel very similar to me. I'm thinking more about the luck side of it than probably the potential to have my really good races, because I feel like we're able to do that here and there on lots of other tracks, now."  Plate racing, especially at Daytona, has always been in Patrick's wheelhouse, though.  "You're constantly looking at what's happening in front of you. You're also looking at what's behind you," she said. "Probably more important than what's happening in front of you is what's happening behind you -- who's coming, who's following you, who's helping you move forward. There have been plenty of times that I've gone to the bottom and complained, 'Where's my help?'  "It seems like I'll slot in on the bottom line and then everyone behind me disappears. You really have to have people behind you, pushing you. The race is constantly evolving and you and your spotter have to be on it. It's a big race for spotters, so having a really good one that you trust is very important."
Daytona International Speedway has always been special for Danica Patrick, and Jared Turner believes the iconic track provides the best opportunity for her to score a NASCAR Sprint Cup victory.