Danica Patrick hasn’t given up on her Daytona-Indy career finale

Though she admits it’s taking longer than she thought it might, Danica Patrick still thinks she can end her racing career the way she’d like.

The dream isn’t dead for Danica Patrick. At least not the dream finish to her racing career, which would see her compete in both the 2018 Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 before moving on to whatever is next.

By now, all racing fans know that Patrick wanted to continue with her Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career, but was left without a ride when Stewart-Haas Racing chose not to renew her contract, going with Aric Almirola — and perhaps more importantly, his Smithfield sponsorship — for its No. 10 Ford this season. Patrick attempted to find another full-time ride but was ultimately unsuccessful.

In November, Patrick announced a plan to put a fitting coda on her racing days by competing at both Daytona and Indy one last time, getting a chance to say goodbye to both NASCAR and IndyCar. While it made perfect sense, it only works if she can find someone to put her in a car in both races, and one of the more obvious candidates, Chip Ganassi Racing, which fields teams in both series, seems like a no go.

Still, Patrick hasn’t given up, telling “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (and transcribed by Kickin’ the Tires) that she is willing to let things play out and see what ends up happening.

"“I thought it was going to be a quicker process, but you can’t rush things. I’m a big believer more and more all the time of letting things flow and just letting things take shape in the way that they would. And 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 the Indy 500 for this year. I didn’t push anything, I just let things flow and it’s turned out to be just perfect.”"

There’s every reason for her to be optimistic, even with time drawing pretty close for Daytona. A smaller NASCAR team considering an extra entry in the Great American Race might be able to lure some one-off sponsorship for Patrick’s stock car swan song without too much trouble, and the same goes for teams that just downsized this offseason — like, say, Furniture Row Racing or Richard Childress Racing.

For the Indy 500, it’s pretty much a yearly thing now to see drivers come in just for that race, and Patrick was more competitive in IndyCar than she was in NASCAR for the most part. She’s also been away from the series for years, so a return for her last ever top level race of any kind would be a story, albeit in a race that always has a bunch of them unfolding.

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So Patrick is right to remain as zen as her yoga poses. Her two-stop farewell tour can definitely still work out, and if it doesn’t, at least she’s not going to spend much time agonizing about it.