Since making the official announcement that she would be running a partial Nationwide Series and ARCA schedule for JR Motorsports, Danica Patrick has been getting her feet wet by testing a stock car at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
She'll also enbark on three days of ARCA testing beginning Friday at Daytona International Speedway in preparation for that series' opener there in February, which Patrick plans to compete in.
Her first foray into NASCAR competition is slated for Feb. 20 at Auto Club Speedway, the second Nationwide Series race of the season. She also plans to race the Nationwide race the following week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
"We're looking at up to 26 she can compete in," JR Motorsports co-owner and president Kelley Earnhardt said of Patrick's run with the team over the next two years.
As announced previously, Patrick will continue to compete on a full-time basis in the IndyCar series, with the gaol of winning the Indianapolis 500. She is still undecided which direction she will take her career in two years down the road after the completion of her current agreement of JR Motorsports, which will carry her through 2011.
"It's just a matter of where my heart is," Patrick said of what she'll do in a couple of years.
Patrick said that she thought about NASCAR a few years ago before heading in the IndyCar direction but decided that she wasn't ready for the schedule, among other things. She says that she's more excited about a NASCAR opportunity now than she was back then.
Excited or not, Patrick has a long road ahead of her as far as getting acclimated to NASCAR and full-bodied race cars. The biggest challenge, according to her and Tony Eury Jr. (her JR Motorsports crew chief), will be getting used to the lingo.
"When Tony talks to me about the car, it just goes over my head at this point," Patrick said.
Eury Jr. said that it was on him to make vocabulary adjustments, saying that Patrick is still going after IndyCar titles, so he should be the one to adjust his terminology.
Eury Jr. has plans to iron that out during extensive testing.
"We can go to a lot of short tracks around here," he said of getting Patrick much needed seat time.
Patrick realizes that there will need to be an adjustment period and doesn't seem to expect to win races right out of the gate.
"The driving needs to feel natural," she said. "That's going to take time."
While the newly formed No. 7 team with Patrick behind the wheel may not be contending for wins in its initial runs, the team does have goals for the 2010 season. According to Eury Jr., the team's goal is to finish in the top-15 each and every week.
Even though she's going through that adjustment period and she hasn't had the opportunity to compete in a stock car yet, she says that she is enjoying herself behind the wheel of the full-bodied racers so far.
"I had a lot of fun, really enjoyed it," she said of her test session at Disney.
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