Following up teammate Kurt Busch’s attempt isn’t in the cards
Registration for NASCAR Fantasy Live is now open!
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Two of her Stewart-Haas Racing teammates are among the four drivers to compete in the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day over Memorial Day weekend, but that prospect doesn’t sound too enticing to Danica Patrick.
On Tuesday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour presented by Technocom, Patrick said she has “less thoughts about doing Indy every year.”
“Like I said last year and the year before, the further I get away from it, the less I think about it and the less I want to do it,” Patrick said. “I feel like being in position to have a chance to win every year I went there was something great and I don’t want to do anything to take away from that and what I accomplished by going there and being worse than that essentially.”
In seven starts in the Indianapolis 500, Patrick has finished in the top 10 six times, including a best finish of third place in 2009.
“It’s a never say never thing,” Patrick added, “but its definitely further and further away in my mind.”
Patrick’s SHR teammate Kurt Busch ran the 500-600 double last year with a sixth-place finish at Indianapolis for Andretti Autosport and a 40th-place finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway due to an expired engine.
Would Busch consider the double again?
“It’s nice to have Tony Stewart‘s blessing to run Indy,” Busch said. “To have Michael Andretti give me the access to come back to give it a shot. It’s something we haven’t talked about.”
Stewart, Patrick’s boss and teammate, has done the double twice, in 1999 and 2001. His best result came in 2001 when he completed all 1,100 miles of the double with a sixth-place finish at Indianapolis and a third-place finish at Charlotte.
Patrick also recently attended the Chili Bowl with her boyfriend, fellow NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who ran in the event. However, she warns not to expect to see her in that event, either.
“Yeah, a lot of people want to get me to run the Chili Bowl and I thoroughly enjoy standing around and hanging out,” she said.
“It’s fun to watch a race. I do like watching racing every now and again and I rarely get to do that.”