After barely making field, Patrick hopeful

Having survived the drama of Bump Day to place herself in the field for Sunday's Indianapolis 500, Danica Patrick joined three-time winner Helio Castroneves and two-time winner and defending champion Dario Franchitti Monday at the Empire State Building. The trio of drivers lit the tower green in honor of the 100th anniversary of an American tradition.

Franchitti qualified ninth and Castroneves was 16th during Pole Day on Saturday, with Patrick the second-fastest qualifier on Bump Day for one of the final nine spots in the 33-driver field. She will start 26th, but her four-lap average of 224.861 mph is faster than 14 other qualifiers.

Still, Patrick was in danger of missing out because of rain delays and an equipment problem. The field was full when she finally ran at 4:45 p.m., but she made it in with 75 minutes left in qualifying.

"This month has been pretty interesting," Patrick said. "It started off really good for me. It's the first time in a long time I felt like I had a really fast car. As we got closer to qualifying weekend, things kind of fell apart. We struggled through the weekend. There's a couple cars on our team that didn't make the race, which is not OK.''

Patrick drives one of five cars on the Andretti Autosports team, but teammates Ryan Hunter-Reay and Mike Conway didn't make the field. With the pressure of qualifying behind her, Patrick hopes to improve on her career-best third-place finish at Indy two years ago.

"By no means did I think I was ever going to qualify as far back as I did," Patrick said. "There's going to be a lot of people that are going to have to go to the drawing board to figure out why we struggled as a team so much.

"But never mind that. I feel like I do have a fast car . . . It's the Indy 500, and anything can happen."