When Indy 500 is run on 27 May, it will be the final race for Danica Patrick.
She announced her retirement last fall, and that she will only do two races in 2018: Daytona 500 and Indy 500.
Since then, the rumour mill has been going, until the teams one by one have said that they don’t have a contract with her.
But now the confirmation is finally out, that she will be running with Ed Carpenter Racing, who enters a third car at this year’s Indy 500.
That will be the first time for her to work with ECR, and it will be the first time since 2011, that she is driving an IndyCar.
Her IndyCar career started in 2005, driving for the Rahal Letterman team. She took three Pole Positions in her rookie season but didn’t manage any wins. 2006 was run at Rahal Letterman too, before she went on to drive for Andretti Autosport from 2007-2011. She took her so far only IndyCar victory with them, in Motegi, Japan 2008.
NASCAR haven’t been a big success for her either results wise, where a Pole Position for the Daytona 500 in 2013 was her highlight.
But there as always been a big media hype around her, due to her gender, and that she was able to beat several of the guys. While her small stature helped her for the first years in IndyCar, where the drivers weight wasn’t counted towards the minimum weight of the car, the rules was later changed, taking away that advantage.
When she started the shift towards NASCAR, she had to step up her training a lot, since the big heavy Stock-cars needed a lot more physical power than the light IndyCars. That, and her temperament, made her stumble more than once during her NASCAR start, but she got a handle on it in the latter years. But unfortunately without any victories.
The car will be in the well known GoDaddy colours, and probably car number 7 written on it, which was her number through most of her IndyCar years. At least she has gotten #7 for the Daytona 500 this weekend, so it will most likely be the same for Indy 500.
The practice for the 102nd Indianapolis 500 starts on 15 May, while the race itself will be run on 27 May.