After rain delay, Danica Patrick gets on track for ARCA test at Daytona
The cars of JR Motorsports NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Danica Patrick sit in the garage as rain falls at Friday's Automobile Racing Club of America test at Daytona International Speedway. // LaDon George, NASCAR Scene
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – After a lengthy rain delay, JR Motorsports driver Danica Patrick got on track Friday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway in the first of a three-day Automobile Racing Club of America session at the 2.5-mile high-banked oval.
Patrick got on the track for four laps before rain began falling again at Daytona just after 2 p.m. EST.
“I was hoping we’d get three [full] days in,” JR Motorsports competition director Tony Eury Sr. said.
Patrick is driving the No. 88 JRM entry in ARCA and is preparing for her stock-car debut in the ARCA race Feb. 6 at Daytona. It will be up to Patrick whether she will compete in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race Feb. 13 at the track or make her NASCAR debut the following week at Auto Club Speedway in California.
The plan is for Patrick to do single-car runs until she feels comfortable and ready for drafting once ARCA allows it.
“She needs to feel the steering and get used to the car before we put her around anybody else,” Eury Sr. said. “We’re definitely going to ease into it.
“We’ve got to make the car run as fast as we can make it run, so we’ve got a lot of pieces to try. We haven’t run these [ARCA] cars in a while.”
Spotting for Patrick is Dale Earnhardt Jr. spotter T.J. Majors.
Eury Sr. said JR Motorsports would like to test Patrick in a Nationwide car at Pikes Peak International Raceway in Colorado Springs (Colo.), Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando and possibly some short tracks in the North Carolina area.
