Crocker not ready to throw in towel just yet

Erin Crocker is stepping up a program that she hopes will land her in a full-time Nextel Cup ride by driving in the Busch, Truck and ARCA Series for Evernham Motorsports. The youngest of five children, Crocker has been sharing weekly with NASCAR.com readers the ups and downs of her life on and off the track through staff writer David Newton.

	Credit: Autostock
	Erin Crocker Year-to-date statistics Race Start Finish Daytona 24 27 California 33 27 Atlanta 30 26 Martinsville 34 25 Gateway 30 22 Charlotte 2 18 Mansfield 25 28 Dover 25 24 Texas 12 33 Michigan 11 24 Milwaukee 33 25 Kansas 12 16 Kentucky 34 27 Memphis 34 30 IRP 33 27 Nashville 27 29 Bristol 31 35 Average 24.9 25.5

I have no plans of giving up my racing career any time soon.

It kind of came off as that was a possibility in a recent newspaper article in which team owner Ray Evernham talked about how I have struggled in the Truck Series.

He made the comment that "a lot of it is going to be up to Erin.''

Quitting is not an issue. I was kind of upset about that because that's what it made it sound like.

I suppose it stems from me making comments that I don't want to be out there racing if I can't do it. I'm frustrated that we haven't had the results that we wanted to, whether it's my fault or whoever's fault.

I'm the type of person that is very competitive. If I don't feel like I belong, then I'd rather not do it.

I'm not the type to be out there just to say I'm a racecar driver, just to be out there to be a novelty in the field. That's just not who I am.

Everything I've done in my life I've been competitive in and been near the front. My personality is if I do it I want to do it right or I don't want to do it at all.

But at no time have I said I don't want to do it or that I'm contemplating stopping. That was just taken out of the conversation.

There is a point that I'll say I don't want to do it, but I'm not even near that.

Hopefully, when I get back in the truck at New Hampshire after a few weeks off I'll be refreshed. Part of me believes that the more you do something the better you are; that time off gets you rusty or something.

That's not really the case here while we're in the middle of a three-week break, but we're thinking about possibly running the ARCA race this weekend at Richmond and doing some testing.

The schedule we originally set was for a full truck schedule, seven ARCA race and six Busch races. The way the schedule fell the seven ARCA races were over a few weeks ago.

Our Research and Development team at Evernham Motorsports is in charge of the ARCA team. Right now they're working on 2007 Cup stuff and the Car of Tomorrow.

They scheduled it that way so they would have time to concentrate on next year, but we may run another just to get me back in a car.

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Meanwhile, I've been enjoying the time off. I spent last weekend in California and did an appearance for Vitamin Water.

It actually was a pretty neat appearance. It was at the Fanfest for the race at California Speedway. They had a small track with remote control cars that got around pretty fast. I had fun with that.

I got to spend some qualify time with my mom shopping. She comes to a lot of races and I see her a lot, but I'm usually on the go and there's never time to relax as much as there was this past weekend.

We went to a big outlet mall near Palm Springs. It ended up being a disaster, actually. Being a hundred zillion degrees out there and being a million people, my mom and I complained the whole time and then laughed about it.

I like going to the West Coast. It's a whole different culture. I haven't spent too much time out there. I raced Sprint cars out there a few times and went to the premier of Herbie Fully Loaded last year, which was really neat.

But I'm more of an East Coast person because I grew up here.

It's been really a good break for me. It's kind of been a tough time not driving a lot and being in the media a lot. It was nice to get a break from stuff. It's hard being around racing full time.

But I know I love racing and I still have a lot to do to prove myself. I've just been down and need to be positive again. That affects everyone. It affects everything. It affects you every day.

The bottom line is I want to race. I love this sport and I want to do it. It's just when you have a few bad weekends you can't help but get down on yourself.