For the first time since 2004, the Indianapolis 500 will not include Danica Patrick. She is skipping it to do the Coca-Cola 600 instead; giving up her self-described favorite race in order to focus on her full-time shift to NASCAR.
Patrick never won the race, but she finished in the top 10 in all but one of her seven starts. She is also the first and only woman to have ever held a lead in that race.
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“I love everything about this place,” Patrick said at Indy last May. “I love the tradition. I love the race itself. So many times you can come away from this event, after 500 miles, and think of how your strategy could have put you in Victory Circle. I think that’s why people love this place and so many people come back.
“So many people have that story as to how they could have maybe won the Indy 500, which is for me the ultimate goal. I would imagine for a lot of people it’s the ultimate goal. It’s definitely high up on the list.”
Patrick refers to her first 500 in 2005 as her most memorable, her “favorite” even more so than when she earned her first IndyCar win at Twin Ring Motegi Superspeedway in Japan in 2008.
Danica will compete this season in the Nationwide Series driving the #7 GoDaddy.com car for JR Motorsports. Do you have to Go Daddy.com to see more? Maybe? Perhaps her Sprint Cup debut behind the wheel of the #10 GoDaddy Chevrolet in the Daytona will be “too hot” for this website.
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