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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --Danica Patrick didn't win Saturday's ARCA race at Daytona International Speedway, but she spun and discovered what it's like when the car does not handle well.

Yet, she couldn't stop smiling after her stock-car racing debut.

"It was a lot of fun,'' Patrick said after coming back from a spin to finish sixth in a race won by Bobby Gerhart. "I bumped from the side. I bumped from the front. I got bumped from the back. I learned a lot. I had so much fun in a race car. I can't wait to do it again.''

Patrick's debut marks the start of a two-year journey that could see one of the country's most recognized drivers move to the Sprint Cup series. She'll run in about a dozen Nationwide races this year and next year around her IndyCar schedule before deciding if she'll run Cup full time.

Just when her next race will be, though, remains uncertain. The team has a car prepared for next week's series opener at Daytona, but she's not expected to make a decision until Monday if she'll compete. If not, she'll make her Nationwide debut in two weeks at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. said he and Rick Hendrick advised her when she began this endeavor that making her Nationwide debut at Daytona might not be best for her because so many Cup drivers are in that race and her inexperience in these cars.

Eury said that after watching Patrick race, he'd vote for her to run the Nationwide race.

"I think she can do it,'' Eury said.

She was put in many situations Saturday from running the high line to working in the draft and spinning.

Patrick saw an opening underneath Nelson Piquet Jr. in the trioval, but Piquet bounced off another car and came down in her path. Patrick held her ground, but the contact spun her and she slid through the infield grass and on to pit road before returning to the track.

"People were kind of checking up and slowing down, so I went to the inside and he tried to cut over to the inside line and I was there,'' Patrick said. "I can't go below the yellow line (at the bottom of the track) to pass, so I just held my line and it collected us. I could either back off and give it up and wuss out, or I can keep my foot in it and make him react to me.''

That wasn't the only moment to stand out for Patrick, who admitted she was surprised a bit by a few things.

"The car does get pretty loose when you get hit,'' she said. "Everything surprised me a little bit, but nothing was crazy. I think that's why I had fun."

During a stoppage for a wreck, she asked if the delay would be about 3 or 4 minutes.

"You can take a nap,'' Eury Jr. radioed back.

It wasn't that long but she got the idea of what things are like in stock-car racing.

That's what Saturday night was for, though, to get her used to the lingo, the feel in the car and what she might expect.

Told to run low because that was the best line, she admitted she moved up high late in the race to try that line.

"I was just seeing if I could do something with it," she said.

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com