Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., IRL, Danica Patrick, NASCAR

While NASCAR has great hopes of improved television ratings and larger crowds for Danica Patrick's return to the circuit this summer, she insists she's just another race car driver seizing an opportunity. Propping up an entire race series isn't her intention.

"I don't feel responsibility (to draw crowds), I'm just going out there and getting experience and trying to do well at the end of the day,'' said Patrick, who returns to NASCAR Nationwide Series competition this Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after spending the last three months focusing on her full time job in the IZOD IndyCar Series.

"I am just really lucky as an athlete that people are curious how I'm doing and want to see. So I just do my best to put on a show and hopefully it's something that gives people a reason to smile and cheer. And if I do that, then I'm doing my job.''

Patrick also quickly deferred to realistic expectations on the track.

"I hope this weekend I finish in the top twenty or the top fifteen and kind of build myself up,'' Patrick said Tuesday.

"I think the best thing I can do for myself on the NASCAR weekends is really come up with some realistic expectation levels instead of having them be like IndyCar expectations levels where I'm hoping to win and I'm hoping to finish on the podium.''

 

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