Patrick’s NASCAR career likely over
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Given the right situation, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. believes his girlfriend still wants to be a race car driver.
Danica Patrick will have to scramble to make that happen. And if the opportunity doesn’t present itself — well, she has plenty of other things to fill her time.
Patrick is at a career crossroads and will not return to Stewart-Haas Racing next season. Unless she can secure significant sponsorship to bring with her to another team, she likely won’t be able to find another full-time ride in NASCAR’s Cup Series.
“I know that she enjoys racing. She loves the competitiveness of it and has been doing it for a long time, so I think if it was up to her she would try getting in a competitive car and keep going out and competing,” Stenhouse said Wednesday.
Patrick has a lot of other business interests to fall back on, though. She has launched a clothing line, has a book coming out next year and has made a transition into promoting healthy and fit lifestyles. She’s 35, in a long-term relationship with Stenhouse and has acknowledged she’d like to get married and have children.
Patrick had an appearance Wednesday for Aspen Dental in Chicago and told ESPN.com that she’s in a good place mentally.
“I believe everything happens for a reason, and you never know how good something can be until you try it,” she said. “So whether that’s of course with another team or whether that’s doing something completely different, I’m open.
“I just want to do what feels right and what will give me the
best chance — if I’m racing, what will give me the best chance to perform and get in the winner’s circle, which is what I want to accomplish in NASCAR. Or if I don’t feel like that’s something that will be possible, then I’m OK with that, too.”
Stenhouse, who will make his debut in the playoffs this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway, said he’s certain she’s going to be fine.
“She is very passionate about all her other businesses that she has going,” he said. “It definitely makes her really happy doing that, so if she didn’t have all those other things going on that she enjoyed, I think I would be a little concerned, because nobody wants to just quit racing.”
Patrick is the only woman competing at NASCAR’s top
level, and she’s also the most accomplished. SHR co-owner Tony Stewart called her “fearless” in his first comments about her upcoming departure from his racing team.
“She has never backed down from a challenge,” Stewart wrote on his Facebook page.
Close friend Kyle Larson said Patrick has nothing left to prove in racing.
“She could leave right now and she’s made a great impact,” Larson said. “She’s a great race car driver … the greatest female race car driver of all time. It’s fun to get to see her away from the track. Her competitiveness is something that’s unmatched.”
Patrick has driven for Stewart-Haas Racing her entire Cup Series career. She is currently
28th in the standings, her low point. She won the pole position for the 2013 Daytona 500, won an IndyCar race in 2008, is the highest-finishing female driver in Indianapolis 500 history (third in 2009) and is the only woman to lead laps in both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500.
Patrick never won a NASCAR race in her six Cup Series seasons, but she is the only woman to earn a pole position, and her seven top-10 finishes are the most of any female driver in series history.
“Making the jump from IndyCar to NASCAR is not easy, yet she had the courage to do so and put up better numbers than a lot of other drivers who have tried to make that same transition,” Stewart wrote.