NASCAR Cup Series

Danica's IRL schedule limits NASCAR commitment

Published Jul. 9, 2010 9:19 p.m. ET

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Kurt Busch believes Danica Patrick will be better equipped to compete in NASCAR once she makes a full-time switch to stock car racing.

''Right now, she's very limited because she's still committed to the IRL schedule,'' Busch said. ''This is just a work in progress. We'll have to wait and see the final product when she decides what road she's going to go down.''

Patrick, who will be racing in Friday night's Nationwide series race at Chicagoland Speedway, doesn't necessarily disagree.

''If you want to be really good at anything you have to obviously centralize your focus,'' she said. ''But at this point in time, I have a tremendous amount to learn. Even if it was full-time, would it be going better? Maybe. But it wouldn't be some big, dramatic - I don't think - difference.''

Patrick doesn't expect to deviate from her plan of racing part-time in NASCAR while also running a full IndyCar schedule anytime soon.

''We're going to do the schedule like this for this year and next year, and then we'll sort of assess where we're at and what we want to do in the future,'' Patrick said.

Patrick has struggled in her first four Nationwide races this season, finishing no better than 30th.

Busch said he expects Patrick to go full-time in NASCAR down the road, joking that such an announcement might be NASCAR's answer to the LeBron James free agent free-for-all.

''She'll probably have a one-hour ESPN prime-time special when she wants to announce it,'' Busch said.

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