Patrick: 'One race, one weekend at a time'

THATSRACIN.COM OPINION

Wednesday, Feb. 03, 2010

SEBRING, Fla. – This was the other side of celebrity, the monotonous, distinctly non-glamorous aspect of Danica Patrick's full-time job that most certainly would not make for a good television commercial.

Sitting on a weathered concrete barrier, Patrick was surrounded by crew members and engineers. The scene on Friday was set across from a chain-link fence surrounding a fertilizer plant. An ultralite wobbled overhead.

Patrick pondered a plate of Sonny's barbecue during a break in IndyCar testing with Andretti Autosport at Sebring International Raceway.

On Thursday, her SpeedWeeks will begin 140 miles east of Sebring, at Daytona International Speedway. She's scheduled to practice for Saturday's season-opening ARCA race – her first in a stock car.

It's not difficult to avoid looking ahead, she said, despite an off-season filled with stock car studies – from tests to pit stop practice last week in Charlotte.

And even if her thoughts had wandered at Sebring, the issue with her Dallara Honda's brakes and the spin that resulted in a broken wheel and an ice pack on her thumb would have snapped her nicely back into the moment.

"It's not difficult at all because I am not nervous about it," she said of separating her full- and part-time jobs.

"I was like, 'Wow, it's like next weekend.' But I'm not even thinking about it because I've got this to do.

"All week, I'm thinking about Indycar, getting ready for this test. It's not hard at all, and that's probably going to be one of the saving graces of the year, is that it's going to be one weekend to the next, one race to the next.

"I'm not worried about that."

For now, she's scheduled to make her NASCAR debut during the season's second weekend, at Fontana, Calif. Maybe that will change after Saturday's Automobile Racing Club of America event.

"I think it truly has everything to do with how we do," she said.

"If I go out there and totally kick ass and have a great weekend, then I think we might think about doing it. I think if I go out there and even if I do well but feel uncomfortable or I feel like, 'Wow, the pit stops ...  We got lucky. Nobody was in the pits,' who knows?

"I might just say, 'Let's be smart. I don't have to do this race.'

"None of my sponsors are making me do it, which is a little blessing. We'll just play it by ear, and it's not about making decisions based on anything other than how I feel in the car.

"So we'll just wait and decide."

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