DAYTONA BEACH FL (2-8-10) - Despite the Danica Mania that commanded the majority of the attention, Lebanon, Pennsylvania veteran Bobby Gerhart out-performed and out-smarted his closest rivals during Saturday's running of the 47th Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 at Daytona Int'l Speedway to earn a record sixth victory at the "World Center of Racing".

However, Gerhart's history-making performance wasn't the only record set on Saturday. With a major boost from Danica Patrick's stock car debut, ARCA's website - ARCAracing.com - smashed all one day records, times three.

Visitors on raceday totaled over 118,000 annihilating the previous single-day mark of 39,375. Pageviews were equally impressive with 715,721, eclipsing the previous high-mark for single-day pageviews of 211,776. Even more impressive when one considers that ARCAracing.com was up against the live telecast on SPEED, which is also likely to produce record ratings.

When asked about the overwhelming amount of attention aimed at Patrick, Gerhart responded.

"I'm glad she was here, really. It brought some very, very well-needed attention to this series. There's a really solid group of hardcore racers here. They race their guts out. I actually welcomed the opportunity to have a national platform to compete at and hopefully when I talk about this series to somebody they're not going to say, ‘You do what?'".

How Gerhart got to victory lane was as incredible as the record itself. His brother and crew chief Bill Gerhart explains.

"We've had this plan in place for months. We stuck to our plan, followed through and it worked. We knew we wanted to pit early. We were thinking lap 12 if there was a caution. But the caution came on lap 13 and they opened the pits on lap 14; that's when we came."

Considering the race was 80 laps, to stretch the fuel mileage from there would have been a huge gamble, and in some circumstances, impossible.

"If it would have gone green from there, we wouldn't have made it. We understood the gamble. But we averaged the cautions from the last 10 years there, took that number and calculated from there. We took four tires and fuel and changed the configuration of the grill tape to allow the car to draft better. Then we came back down with the 'one to go' on lap 15 and put a few more pints of gas in it. We knew if we could stay out of trouble, when everyone else cycled down pit road, we'd be leading."

However, the early pit stop placed Gerhart on the tail-end of the lead-lap line, and at greater risk.

"Then we dodged that bad accident in front of us. A piece of brake rotor went through the front fender and lodged on top of the engine and was there for rest of race. But at that point, when everyone pitted, we inherited the lead."

From there, and with not a single teammate, Gerhart relied on his experience to hold off the pack for the remainder of the race, which culminated with a long green-flag run.

"Once Bobby was in the lead, his experience kept him there; that's all there is to it," added Bill Gerhart. "I mean, for much of the way, he had three Venturini cars - (Mark) Thompson, Alli Owens and John Wes (Townley) lined up right behind him."

Most Wins at Daytona

Gatorade Duel: Dale Earnhardt, 12

Daytona 500: Richard Petty, 7

Nationwide Series Camping World 300: Dale Earnhardt, 7

ARCA Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200: Bobby Gerhart, 6

Budweiser Shootout: Dale Earnhardt, 6

Coke Zero 400: David Pearson, 5

Truck Series NextEra Energy Resources 250: Todd Bodine, 2

Nationwide Series Subway Jalapeno 250: Dale Earnhardt, Jr., 2

Patrick Out-Performs for Critics

Patrick's sixth place performance also got high reviews - keeping ahead of the multi-car wrecks, mixing it up with the lead draft the whole way and surviving her own wild slide through the infield grass.

"I came down and went straight to the grass, and I thought, "Grass is not good for grip,'" said Patrick. "I came back on the track sideways, and I took my hands off the wheel, and Tony Jr. was screaming at me to get back into it, so I hit the gas, then it caught."

Patrick also survived a serious bump and grind with Ricky Carmichael on the last lap, inching ahead of the 15-time AMA Motocross champ at the final stripe.

"I made some mistakes, and I learned a lot. It was fun."

Patrick learned enough to be able to announce that she would go ahead with plans to compete in this Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona, driving for the first time on NASCAR's second-tier circuit after her confidence-boosting run in Saturday's ARCA race.

"Racing in the Nationwide Series race was my goal during this entire two-month preparation process, but we wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do," Patrick, who plans to run a partial Nationwide schedule this year, said in a statement.

"The ARCA race was a blast, and I'm not ready for my first Daytona Speedweeks to end just yet."

JR Motorsports team general manager Kelley Earnhardt said she was impressed by Patrick's performance in the ARCA event.

"I think Danica proved to everyone that she can compete in stock cars at a high level," Earnhardt said.

Nelson Piquet, Jr's Stock Car Debut Marred by Controversy

Patrick also overshadowed the stock car debut of Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet, Jr., who finished 27th in Eddie Sharp's no. 6 Toyota Camry. However, the son of the three-time Formula 1 world driving champion Nelson Piquet didn't exactly make a lot of friends. The Brasilia, Brazil driver was involved in at least three on-track incidents, making contact with nine-time series champ Frank Kimmel, Barry Fitzgerald, who flipped wildly down the backstretch, and Danica Patrick, who survived her encounter with Piquet to return to finish sixth. Kimmel, with a badly bent racecar, had to settle for 25th.