Despite Teammate's Death, Patrick Is Ready to Push On

Danica Patrick said yesterday that she did not know Paul Dana well. He was new to Rahal Letterman Racing, and her memories of him were limited to the times she asked him to move at team meetings so she could sit next to her engineer.

Dana died of injuries from a two-car collision Sunday during a warm-up session before the Indy Racing League opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida. The decision by Bobby Rahal, the team's co-owner, to pull Patrick and Buddy Rice from the race might have cost one of them a victory and, perhaps, a championship.

Patrick, the biggest star in the I.R.L. although she has never won a race, strapped herself into a racecar yesterday for a test session at the track where Dana crashed.

At a news conference at the speedway, the 24-year-old Patrick said she stood behind Rahal's decision. But she added that her car was fast enough to win, and that some fans in the estimated crowd of 30,000 had come just to see her race.

"We drive racecars, and it's what we love, and it's our job, but we don't walk out there a couple minutes afterwards and say, 'I've forgotten already,' " Patrick said, referring to the accident.

After Ed Carpenter hit the Turn 2 wall during a warm-up session on Sunday, Patrick said she heard her team spotter clearly say, "Yellow, yellow, stay low." She eased off the gas and cruised past Carpenter's wrecked car seconds before Dana slammed into it at 176 miles an hour.

"We drive the length of a football field in a second," Patrick said. "I mean, you have to see a lot -- from yellow flags, to cars moving around, to whatever you're looking at. So I don't think you can point the finger in this situation."

Patrick and Rice, the 2004 Indianapolis 500 champion, are expected to drive Sunday in the Streets of St. Petersburg race. Rahal Letterman Racing, co-owned by the talk-show host David Letterman, will not enter the No. 17 car driven by Dana.

Dana, 30, was short on experience, but his teammates admired his determination. "That guy put everything he had into becoming a racecar driver," Rice said.

During a conference call yesterday, Kevin Savoree, the managing director of the St. Petersburg race, said, "Ticket sales are substantially ahead of where they were last year."

Patrick said she would drive to win. "I'm not more scared that I'm going to die," she said.

Before withdrawing from the season opener, she posted the third-fastest qualifying speed, behind the Marlboro Team Penske drivers Sam Hornish Jr. and Hélio Castroneves, who were fastest again yesterday.

Rahal, who was in China to watch his son, Graham, drive in a race, was not available for comment. His decision to pull his drivers was well received by colleagues, but it might have stripped some drama from the 14-race series.

Carpenter was released from the hospital Monday, but he will not be cleared to drive Sunday, the I.R.L. said. Roberto Moreno, a veteran road racer, drove the No. 20 Vision Racing car in his absence yesterday, but a replacement has not been named for the race.

"It definitely is going to affect the championship, losing a race in a very competitive series, that's for sure," Michael Andretti, the owner of Dan Wheldon's car last year, said of Rice and Patrick's withdrawal in a conference call Tuesday.