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The Sports Network
Concord NC (Sports Network) - Danica Patrick revealed on Monday that she will
forgo this year's Indianapolis 500 and will instead compete in the 600-mile
Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 -- NASCAR's longest race of the season --
are scheduled on May 27.
Patrick left the IZOD IndyCar Series at the end of last season to compete in
NASCAR full-time this year, running the entire 33-race schedule in the
Nationwide Series and at least 10 races in Sprint Cup.
"I hope to do it [Indy 500] in the future," she said during a press
conference. "At this point, after a lot of conversations, it's just going to
be the Coke 600. I think it's going to be a big challenge, but I'm looking
forward to it."
Last November, Patrick and her team owner, Tony Stewart, who is the reigning
Sprint Cup champion, announced eight of her 10-scheduled races, beginning with
the February 26 season-opening Daytona 500. She is also slated to compete at
Darlington (May 12), Bristol (August 25), Atlanta (September 2), Chicagoland
(Sept. 16), Dover (Sept. 30), Texas (November 4) and Phoenix (Nov. 11).
Charlotte becomes the ninth race added to Patrick's Sprint Cup schedule. Her
tenth event will announced at a later date. Stewart-Haas Racing is hopeful she
will run a full-time schedule in NASCAR's premier series in 2013.
Patrick has competed in the Indy 500 in each of the last seven years,
finishing in the top-10 six times. Her best finish in that race is third,
which came in 2009. She posted a fourth-place run at Indy during her '05
rookie season in IndyCar.
Regarding this year's race at Indy, Patrick noted "It was just something that
didn't quite work out on the business side of things."
The Sports Network