NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Patrick Will Run Daytona 500
Danica Patrick will race in next year’s Daytona 500...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted November 04, 2011   Fort Worth, TX
Danica Patrick speaks at a press conference Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Danica Patrick will run 10 NASCAR Sprint Cup races with Stewart-Haas Racing next year, making her Cup debut in the 2012 Daytona 500.

Eight of the races have been determined, with two to be decided on at a later date.

In addition to Daytona, Patrick will race at Darlington Raceway in May, the Bristol Motor Speedway night race in August, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway and the second races at Dover International Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway and Phoenix International Raceway.

“Today is a huge day for us,” said Tony Stewart, the co-owner of SHR and driver of the No. 14 Chevrolet, who introduced Patrick at Texas Motor Speedway. “This has been a long time coming for us, obviously.”

Next year, Patrick will drive the No. 10 GoDaddy.com-sponsored Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet and is expected to race full-time in the Sprint Cup Series in 2013.

“My favorite number has always been No. 10,” Patrick said. “ ... This is the first time in my professional career that I’ve ever been able to choose my own number.”

“This is all in an effort to get ready for 2013,” Stewart said. “If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing, obviously. It’s part of the learning curve ... It’s an aggressive schedule and an ambitious one for anyone who hasn’t been in a Cup car.”

Stewart said SHR is looking for a crew chief for Patrick’s car. “I would love to say I had it done already, but it’s a work in progress right now,” he said.

Patrick did leave the door open for racing in next year’s Indianapolis 500, but said that’s the only open-wheel race she might run, and even Indy is up in the air.

“I’d like to do that, but we don’t know yet,” Patrick said when asked about the Indy 500.

Stewart is looking at finding additional sponsorship for next year that would allow the No. 10 to run the full Sprint Cup schedule next year with a different driver or drivers in the other 26 Cup races. SHR is also looking for a sponsor for eight races on Ryan Newman’s No. 39 car next year

“It’s very advantageous for us to run that car (the No. 10) full-time next year,” Stewart said. “... It is our goal to try and do everything we can to run this car full-time next year.”

As far as the mix of tracks, Stewart said they were chosen because of their difficulty. “We took the whole schedule and tried to find races that we thought were going to be, I guess to a certain degree, really challenging for her,” Stewart said. “We wanted to pick tracks that we thought we needed to put some emphasis on.”

“Darlington will be a handful,” said Patrick. “I actually enjoy Bristol, but I’m betting that once I get out there with you guys it’s going to be a whole other level. I know Atlanta is pretty challenging and has some unique characteristics ... Dover was a handful last year.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
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