Roush doubts Patrick can succeed in limited effort
Roush Fenway Racing has had initial discussions with IndyCar driver Danica Patrick, but it appears that Patrick is further along in talks with other teams.
That’s fine with team owner Jack Roush, who is not convinced the open-wheel driver can be successful driving part time in NASCAR.
Patrick plans to run full time in the IndyCar Series next year but also dabble in NASCAR to see if she might want to race stock cars full time in the future.
“She’d like to be able to drive her [Indy] car and on off weekends come and drive a Nationwide or a Sprint [Cup] car, and that’s not going to work,” Roush said. “Juan Pablo Montoya [has] made the comment lately that she’d be better off to continue doing what she’s doing until she’s ready to change gears.
“This is really, really, really, really hard to do. She may be able to do it or she may not. I hope that she can, but she certainly won’t be able to do it with distractions with a minimized effort.”
Roush said Patrick would need to run a Nationwide or a Truck schedule for a year and then decide if she wanted to continue learning and developing the skills needed to compete in a stock car.
“As long as she has got at least an interest with running the IRL thing with priority in her schedule, she doesn’t have time to make a concerted effort for it,” Roush said. “Without a concerted effort, she will not be successful.”
