NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick said Sunday in Phoenix that he has no deal in place to bring IndyCar Series star Danica Patrick to NASCAR, indicating that discussions with Patrick's management team are ongoing.
"I just think that they (Patrick and her business managers IMG) are not even close to making a decision on whether to even do it this year or next year," Hendrick told the Associated Press. "You never know until it's done. You never know until it's signed. And anybody can change their mind. When you get down to the nitty-gritty of any deal, it's always complicated. There can always be someone who comes back and says, 'I can't do it because of this.' So until it's done, it's not done. And that's the honest truth."
For weeks now, Patrick has supposedly been on the verge of concluding a deal with JR Motorsports, the team co-owned by Hendrick and his Sprint Cup driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., to make a limited series of stock car starts next year in NASCAR Nationwide and ARCA Re/Max Series events. Patrick has continually refused comment on the reported discussions. She has also declined to confirm her supposed deal with Andretti Green Racing on an IndyCar contract extension, which was first reported by the
Indianapolis Star back in September.