Danica Patrick will be driving in the nation’s most popular racing series in 2012—if only part-time.
Patrick announced her 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule Friday, along with Tony Stewart, driver and co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing. Patrick will drive for Stewart-Haas at the season-opening Daytona 500 and ten other races.
Patrick is confirmed for Darlington, Bristol, Atlanta, Chicago, Dover, Texas and Phoenix, while driving full-time for JR Motorsports in the Nationwide series.
Stewart told NASCAR.com that the team was keeping two other race dates open. “If we see a place or Danica feels like there’s a track that she struggled at, we have that flexibility to plug them in. But we will run ten full races with her.”
“The most weighted factor [in determining the schedule] was places that might be a challenge—places that had unique characteristics, that would be good to get some extra laps at,” Patrick added.
“At a place like Darlington, for example, where I'll run the Cup and Nationwide cars together, one absolutely will help the other.”
Patrick will feel at home at Daytona International Speedway—she made a strong showing there in July’s Nationwide race, leading 13 laps and finishing tenth after a crash with four laps to go. She proved herself a master of the tandem-driving technique needed in NASCAR restrictor-plate superspeedway racing.
