After three full seasons, she has just six top-10 finishes and was no better than 24th in the standings. And she’s off to another poor start this season, standing 29th after five races.

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But through all that, one minor consolation has been the fact that other young, inexperienced Cup drivers struggled, too. That includes one in her “family.”

Patrick’s boyfriend, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., also has had a rough start to his Sprint Cup career, finishing 19th, 27th and 25th in points in his first three seasons. He even finished one spot behind Patrick last season.

But not anymore. While Patrick is struggling, Stenhouse appears to be figuring it out.

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Stenhouse has two top-10 finishes in the first five races this season and scored his fourth career top-five last week at Auto Club Speedway in California. After five races, the two-time Xfinity Series champion is 14th in points and in position to make the Chase if he can keep it up.

“I feel really strong about the direction we’re headed,” Stenhouse said. “Everybody is like, ‘You’re back.’ We still have a long ways to go, but I’m definitely happy about the effort and the direction that we’re going.”

Patrick, meanwhile, continues to struggle to find any success or consistency. In five races this season, she has finished 35th, 20th, 21st, 19th and 38th. And just when she seems to get going, something bad happens.

She was making progress last week when Kasey Kahne slid into her and knocked her car into the wall. Patrick was so angry she walked onto the track apron to gesture at Kahne, drawing a $20,000 fine from NASCAR.

“I was having a pretty good recovery day, kind of like last weekend,” Patrick said. “I was just running good race laps and on the lead lap at the end of the race back up into the top 20 from a bad starting position. And I was looking forward to a good finish and a good off week. Unfortunately now there is more work to be done at the shop, which is not I’m sure what they want.”

Stenhouse, meanwhile, seems to have adapted to NASCAR’s new low-downforce package, which makes the cars looser on the track and harder to drive. With better cars from Roush Fenway Racing, Stenhouse and crew chief Nick Sandler are starting to click.

“Ricky is doing a great job this year with being consistent on the racetrack and taking care of his equipment and managing the tires,” Sandler, a former engineer with a degree from Duke University, told NBCSports.com. “Goodyear has brought a different package this year and that has changed the playing field a little bit. Ricky has grabbed ahold of it.”

Stenhouse, who comes from a sprint-car background, seems to like the looser cars slipping and sliding around the track.

“The package is tough to drive, but it’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I think the drivers are having some of the most fun out there that we’ve had in a long time. I think the direction that NASCAR was able to go with the package and the low downforce made it fun for us.

“I think it’s making it interesting, especially late in these races when you can hustle the car a little bit more than you could last year. I think that’s making it very interesting and hopefully there will be another winner and a new first-time winner on Sunday.”

The way he’s running, it soon could be Stenhouse.