MONTREAL — Danica Patrick has kept the motor racing world waiting for the expected announcement that she will move full-time to NASCAR and she wasn’t going to let it slip out at a Nationwide race in Montreal.
When asked about an ESPN report Thursday that a long-term NASCAR contract was done, Patrick simply said: “Sorry to bore you, but there’s nothing new to report.”
Patrick, who will take part in her first road course race in the NASCAR Nationwide series beginning Friday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, has been a fixture in IndyCar racing for the last seven years, mixing in stock car action on the side.
But there have been strong suggestions for the last two years that she was ready for a permanent move to NASCAR.
The report said the 29-year-old will sign a long-term deal that will see her learn the ropes for a year in the Nationwide series with JR Motorsports in 2012 and then jump to NASCAR’s top-level Sprint Cup with Stewart-Haas in 2013. It said it will be announced next week in Phoenix.
It was not known if she would continue to make an annual open wheel appearance at the Indianapolis 500, where she made her breakthrough with a fourth-place finish in 2005.
“All I can say is that I’ve enjoyed everything in NASCAR — the discipline, the difference in how you have to race the car — but there really is nothing like the feel of an open wheel car,” she said. “They do such amazing things that just believing they’ll do it is half the battle.
“And I love the Indy 500, so it is a difficult choice. I’ve dedicated seven years to IndyCar.”
Patrick has been the poster girl for IndyCar, but she would likely do better financially and perhaps on the track amid the much higher visibility and larger fan base in stock car racing.
“I think everyone will be relieved once this is over, whenever that is, and we can all move on,” she added.
Patrick will be a teammate of veteran road racer Ron Fellows of Toronto with JR Motorsports for the fifth running of the Nationwide event on the track known better as the home of the Canadian Grand Prix Formula One race.
She was mostly overlooked in her three previous visits to the track early in her career — once in the Barber-Dodge series and twice in Formula Atlantic.
This time, a news conference was prepared at a downtown hotel where she shared the spotlight with 1997 F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve, who will drive the No. 22 Penske Dodge that Kurt Busch won in last week at Watkins Glen, N.Y. Busch will be busy at a Sprint Cup event at Michigan this weekend.
It was her first meeting with Villeneuve, who was IndyCar and Indy 500 champ before joining the Williams F1 team in 1996. He left F1 in 2006, and now races sporadically in stock cars, usually for road races.
“He was probably the only driver I really wanted to be like,” Patrick admitted. “I usually give the answer that I have no heroes or role models and I just want to be the first me, but Jacques was the only one I looked up to and thought ‘man, if I could only do something like that,’ because of how well he did at Indy, and then won in F1. I thought it was amazing for a driver to do all that so quickly. This is a cool opportunity for me to race against him.”
Patrick has only one race victory in IndyCar, in Japan in 2008, and won’t be among the favourites on the 2.7-mile Montreal track because she tends to do better on fast ovals than on road courses.
But her green Go Daddy No. 7 car is sure to draw a lot of attention from the grandstands.
“She’s achieved a lot,” said Villeneuve. “It’s tough to get into racing as a female.
“It’s getting better. When I started racing, it was for men and any time a woman tried to come in they got treated badly. She’s a fierce competitor and a fighter, so it was probably good training mentally to have it hard going in. The racing I’ve seen, you don’t want to mess with her.”
Forty-nine cars will try to qualify on Friday for the 43 spots open for the race on Saturday.
The other IndyCar regular on the track will be Alex Tagliani of Lachenaie, Que., and he will be Villeneuve’s Penske teammate for the weekend.
“I couldn’t have organized this if I wanted to,” Tagliani said. “I’m definitely looking forward to (working with Villeneuve). It’s really unique. It will be nice to have him around.”
Patrick Carpentier of Joliette, Que., another former open wheel stalwart, will appear in what he says will be his last race before retirement.