DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Feb. 15, 2013) — Danica Patrick will run a limited NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule this year for Turner Scott Motorsports, driving one of the team's stable of Chevy Camaros.
Rumors surfaced last month that she would drive for owners Steve Turner and Harry Scott Jr., but Ms. Patrick adamantly denied anything until Media Day at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach.
Some details of her deal remain unsettled. For example: how many Nationwide races will she run as she tries the full Sprint Cup schedule for Rookie of the Year. She'll begin with Turner Scott in the Feb. 23 DRIVE4COPD 300 at Daytona Beach, joining full-schedule teammates Justin Allgaier, Kyle Larson and Nelson Piquet Jr.
Ms. Patrick has five previous Nationwide starts at Daytona Beach, with a best finish of 10th in July 2011. She won the pole for last year's season-opening Nationwide race there, but crashed out to 38th. All told, she has one pole, no wins, one top-five finish and seven top-10 finishes in 58 career Nationwide starts, all for JR Motorsports. Ms. Patrick was 10th in points among the 13 drivers who raced the full 2012 Nationwide schedule.
And, no real surprise, she was the series' Most Popular Driver.
As always, all parties involved said all the right things: "I'm looking forward to competing in the Nationwide race at Daytona," Ms. Patrick said. "Turner Scott Motorsports is a great organization and they've got great people to work with. I thank everybody at GoDaddy for this opportunity; they're always so supportive of what I do."
Team co-owner Scott was happy, too: "We're very happy to announce the addition of Danica Patrick to our lineup for the race in Daytona," he said. "We think a lot of her and what she's achieved in NASCAR. She's a great qualifier at Daytona and has a lot of experience there in her relatively short NASCAR career.
"We think Turner Scott Motorsports has a lot of potential for the first race of the season, and we're looking forward to getting to the race track."
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This report appeared on the website of Autoweek magazine, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.