Indy Racing League (IRL) star Danica Patrick signed with JR Motorsports on Tuesday to give NASCAR a try, but her schedule in the second-tier Nationwide Series has yet to be determined.
Patrick will make her stock car racing debut in the Feb. 6 ARCA race at Daytona International Speedway.
The IndyCar Series sensation unveiled her green and orange No. 7 Chevrolet in a news conference at Chase Field with GoDaddy.com, which is sponsoring her in both series.
PHOTO: AFP
“We’ve all been working very hard for some time now to bring this all together,” Patrick said. “There’s much relief there, but I’m starting to get a little bit nervous that now it’s time to do my part of the deal and get out there in these cars and perform. It’s no doubt going to be challenging.”
Patrick will juggle her new NASCAR job with her full-time job in IndyCar, where she’s the series’ most marketable driver in the US. She finalized a three-year contract extension last week with Andretti Autosport to run the full IndyCar schedule, but there’s enough down time in the schedule to do both.
She will drive for the team owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr and Rick Hendrick in the second-tier Nationwide Series.
“I think [NASCAR] is something we’re going to try to do before and after the IndyCar season, but we will look at some options,” she said.
It’s not yet determined how many NASCAR races she will run next year. With flashbulbs popping, the black-clad Patrick posed between her NASCAR and IndyCar rides.
Patrick said she’s more comfortable with the demands of a heavier schedule — something that she said she wasn’t ready to do a few years ago, when speculation began to grow that she was considering racing stock cars.
“I’m finally ready,” Patrick said. “I think that the schedule doesn’t intimidate me as much as it used to. It’s going to be a lot to learn.”
Kelley Earnhardt, sister of JR Motorsports co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr, worked to bring Patrick into the fold.
Asked about the team’s expectations of Patrick, Earnhardt said: “I think it’s reasonable for her to be in the top 15 of the series when she’s running.”
Patrick said she could “barely remember” the last time she was in a stock car and thought it was seven or eight years ago. But she said she’s willing to learn a “new craft” and hopes to challenge the top names in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup some day.
“Obviously, if ever one day it continued on and I ended up running in the Cup, then I need to learn how to race against those guys and earn their respect,” Patrick said. “So I’m excited about that, actually. It’s an opportunity to try and show what I’ve got.”
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