NASCAR: Finding rides for 2018 races taking longer than expected for Danica Patrick

The process of finding rides in NASCAR and IndyCar for the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500, respectively, has taken longer than Danica Patrick expected.

Two days before the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series concluded with the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida, 35-year-old Danica Patrick announced that her full-time career in the sport would be ending after that weekend, which ultimately meant that it would end following a five-year full-time run with Stewart-Haas Racing.

However, Patrick announced that she would not be officially retiring from racing altogether just yet. She announced that she had plans to race in two races in 2018: the Daytona 500 in the NASCAR Cup Series and the Indianapolis 500 in IndyCar, a race she has not driven in since 2011.

Here we are more than a month and a half after these announcements and Patrick still doesn’t have rides lined up for either of those races. In fact, we are closer to the start of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season, which is marked by the Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 18th, than we are to the end of the 2017 season.

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There was speculation at first that Chip Ganassi Racing would be the team she drives for in both of those races since they are one of two teams with a team in both the Cup Series and IndyCar. The other team of that type, Team Penske, is at capacity for the Indianapolis 500, so they were never really in the mix.

However, talks with Chip Ganassi Racing recently came to a halt for Patrick, leaving many wondering whether or not she will actually end up driving in the Daytona 500 and/or the Indianapolis 500 this year.

Patrick herself has stated that this process of finding rides for both of those races has taken longer than she would have liked it to and longer than she expected it to. But she hasn’t given up.

According to crash.net, here is what Patrick had to say about the lengthiness of the process of finding rides for the 2018 Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500, a process that has not yet concluded.

"“It’s taking longer than I’d like it to take, I’ll be really honest with you. I thought it was going to be a quicker process. You can’t rush things. I’m a big believer, more and more all the time, of letting things flow and letting things take shape in the way that they would.“That’s kind of why I ended where I ended with finishing up [my] full-time career last year, and doing the Daytona 500 and Indy 500 for this year. I didn’t push anything and I let things flow and it turned out to be just perfect. Honestly, I’m excited and just so grateful.”"

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Will Danica Patrick end up driving in the Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 18th and the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 27th this year, or will she end up announcing her retirement without driving in either race? With the former coming up quickly in under a month and a half, we should finally have the answers to some of these intriguing questions that we have sought answers for since November in the near future.

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