NASCAR Cup Series

Danica finds comfort in NASCAR

Published Mar. 5, 2011 2:01 a.m. ET

foxsports

Danica Patrick is certainly showing progress in the NASCAR Nationwide Series this season — and she’s finding that it’s easier to manage her schedule now that she has more experience with it.

Of course, the IZOD IndyCar Series season hasn’t kicked off yet, so she’s had time to focus her efforts.

That’s paid off with finishes of 14th and 17th with her JR Motorsports NASCAR Nationwide team — career-best results that show improvement over last season — and is looking forward to her third consecutive race. And, with the new points structure that forced drivers to choose one series in which to compete for the title this season, she sits fourth in the series standings.

Not that it matters to the 28-year-old as she’s running a limited Nationwide schedule once more. Still, she seems pleased with her progress to date.

“Daytona and Phoenix were both much better than they were last year,” she told reporters during a media appearance at Texas Motor Speedway Thursday. “Both of those had crashes in them and at one point last year I just thought to myself ‘Gosh, do you just crash all the time in NASCAR? Is this just the deal?’

“But it’s not, you know, you just learn how to maneuver and how to be safe out there and get through it. I guess that after Daytona there were still accidents but if I would have been in the positions that I was last year at Daytona there’s a really good chance I would’ve been collected because they happened behind me and they happened in that 15th- to 20th-place range so we were ahead of that and we were able to stay out of trouble.”

Patrick expects for it to be easier to manage her double-duty this year. Last year, she was just learning the stock cars and heading to tracks for the first time in a stock car. That not only proved to be a steep learning curve, but her visits also generated increased media and other obligations.

This year, she expects to face a little less of both.

“Things are much, much more manageable this year,” she said. “I mean, things still get busy. I’ve had a different city every day this week but then they’ll be a time when I have the week off so it’s more manageable. There’s less news to report, you know, it’s not my first time at a track — at a lot of tracks — and it’s not my first time in NASCAR right now. But you know you still get the excitement out of tracks where I haven’t gone before."

As to the IndyCar side of things, Patrick admitted that she’s disappointed with at least one change for the 2011 season.

“Well, naturally being a winner in Japan I’m disappointed to see that go from the schedule,” she said. “I know it’s a long way for the teams but I don’t know. I know Honda’s had a lot of influence on that in the past ... you know, influence on going there. But I love the country. I love the people and the culture and the food, and Japan was almost like a little vacation every time I went and my husband and I really enjoy it.

“We said a couple of years ago when we went that we could probably live here for like six months and just be able to take in the country and see everything but, that’s a disappointment to me. Over the years we’ve lost a lot of really, really good venues, I think, in the IndyCar Series and this year losing Kansas, Chicago and Homestead is disappointing.”

Patrick’s in a contract year in both NASCAR and IndyCar, where she drives for Andretti Autosport, but she didn’t offer any insight into what her plans are going forward.

Asked how long she plans to continue her double-duty responsibilities, she simply pointed out that she is enjoying her role now.

“I don’t know if I’ll do double-duty forever,” she said. “I mean I think at some point in time, you know, you can’t — I wanted to try NASCAR and you can’t ... there’s a perception that it takes away from one or the other and you know, let’s say for the JR Motorsports situation racing just part of the time that’s an opportunity they don’t want to turn down and there’s sponsorship for it, but that makes it challenging and then, what do you do for the rest of the year? And finding a driver to fill in and selling a part-time season to someone is harder. It’s tough on, you know, it’s not just tough for a driver to go back and forth and move around it’s tough for the teams too so I don’t know how much longer.

“But I’m having fun at the moment and every time I go back to a track in NASCAR I have twice the amount of fun I had the first time because I kind of know what I'm doing out there and it makes for better results so hopefully that trend keeps happening.”