updated 4:50 p.m. ET May 31, 2005

INDIANAPOLIS - Danica Patrick knew she could hang with the boys.

She nearly beat them at the Indianapolis 500.

Patrick overcame a couple of rookie mistakes to finish fourth Sunday, the strongest showing for a woman in the race’s 89-year history and a thrilling performance that restored some luster to the storied event.

Nearly all of the 300,000 fans were standing and waving their arms when Patrick grabbed the lead on a restart with only 10 laps to go. For a fleeting moment, the 23-year-old driver had visions of sipping milk in Victory Lane.

“Sure, I thought about it,” Patrick conceded.

But she had to conserve fuel to make it to the end and couldn’t hold off winner Dan Wheldon. Teammate Vitor Meira and Bryan Herta also got past before the race finished under yellow, the result of a crash with one lap to go.

“If we could have run with a full fuel load, you never know,” Patrick said. “I’d like to think I could have won it. But we had to sacrifice somewhere to come from where we were.”

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Patrick came to Indy this month recognized more for her looks than her racing. She gained plenty of notoriety when she posed in a bikini for a men’s magazine, but there were plenty of skeptics questioning whether she could run up front.

Not anymore.

“This just shows what she’s made of,” said her mother, Bev Patrick. “She had to overcome plenty of obstacles with the stigma of the male-female thing.”

Danica had to overcome plenty of obstacles in Sunday’s race — two of them the sort of miscues that rookies tend to make an Indy.

First, after starting fourth and becoming the first woman to lead a lap at Indy, Patrick stalled her car in the pits, knocking her from fourth to 16th.

She worked her way back to seventh, then had another embarrassing mistake during a caution with 45 laps to go. Patrick was revving her engine to take green when her No. 16 car suddenly swerved to the right between the third and fourth turns, colliding with Tomas Enge and sending Tomas Scheckter spinning into the wall.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick told her crew over the radio.

As it turned out, the crash helped her get to the front.

FREE VIDEO Learning experience May 29: Sensational rookie Danica Patrick talks about how much she learned in her first Indy 500, when she finished fourth. NBC Sports

Patrick managed to get the car straightened out and limped back to the pits — her left wing and nose cone sheared off by the crash. The Rahal Letterman crew quickly repaired the damage, getting her back out while still on the lead lap. She returned to the pits a second time under yellow, getting a full tank of fuel and four new tires.

“Gosh, did I make mistakes,” Patrick said. “I can’t believe my car wasn’t completely demolished because I got hit like twice. I spun around and can’t believe I kept the engine running.”

Patrick took over the lead on lap 172 when everyone in front of her pitted, her crew gambling she could make it to the end of the 200-lap race. But she couldn’t run at full power, getting passed by Wheldon just as Kosuke Matsuura crashed behind them on lap 186.

That actually put Patrick in the most favorable position for the restart, and she stormed past Wheldon on the front straightaway. Again, the crowd erupted in a frenzy.

“Keep looking forward, keep looking forward,” Patrick’s crew chief told her over the radio.

Patrick guarded the lead until lap 194, but there was no holding off Wheldon. He’s been the strongest driver on the circuit all year, winning for the fourth time in five races.

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