Danica Patrick will not decide until Monday if she will make her NASCAR debut in the Nationwide Series season-opening DRIVE4COPD 300 on Feb. 13 at Daytona International Speedway.

Patrick is competing in the Automobile Racing Club of America event Saturday at DIS and after her performance there, she will decide whether she will drive the JR Motorsports No. 7 car for the Nationwide event at Daytona or make her debut in the Feb. 20 race at Auto Club Speedway in California. She wants to see how she does and how comfortable she is in the car during the ARCA event.

“At the end of the day, it would be nice to have a good result, but [the decision] is going to be more off the feeling that I have and how little mistakes I made and how comfortable I was with the different situations,” Patrick told SceneDaily.com on Thursday during NASCAR Media Day. “We’ll announce whether I do it or not do it on Monday. Nobody is putting pressure on me; that’s the thing. I feel pretty lucky from that perspective.

“I just want to be smart. This is the biggest race of the year for everybody, and there are guys that are going to be out there running for a championship. Obviously there’s the challenge of all those Cup guys out there, too. It’s been recommended it’s not the best idea to start there, and I’m not going to ignore [that advice].”

They 27-year-old IndyCar Series star got back in a stock car Thursday afternoon in ARCA practice. The only time she had been in a stock car since her Dec. 18-20 test at Daytona was for pit-stop practice last week at JR Motorsports. She needed that practice – she says she feels most comfortable on the track but not with the things unique to NASCAR, such as having to control pit-road speed with the pedals and not having a rev-limiter in the car for that.

“We did about 20 practice stops, which was really good for me,” Patrick said. “What is unique about these cars vs. IndyCar is No. 1, you don’t have a pit-speed limiter. … You have to follow an RPM [limit], the colors and the lights. It’s a little challenging and I’m sure a little distracting when you have to watch people coming in and out of their pit boxes.

“Every pit stop is different depending on who is in their box.”

Another challenge for her this weekend will be with many development drivers in the ARCA event, the race often includes some hard wrecks.

“I heard that it’s a crashfest and I didn’t know that,” Patrick said. “That makes me just realize I need to be smart out there. I heard everybody runs yellow line all the way around the whole race. You just stay in line and wait for something to happen at the end. … If I make a mistake, I’m going to learn from it.”

Patrick promised to be herself during her 13-race stock-car schedule this year, even if that means she becomes emotional. The IndyCar fans have seen those emotions, but the NASCAR fans have not.

“I’ve never been afraid to be honest,” Patrick said. “I have perhaps become more gracious over the last year or two in how that comes out. But I will always be me. I will always be emotional. I will always have somewhat of a temper. And that is because I care.”

Most of the talk for media day centered on the new NASCAR “boys have it” policy, and Patrick gave her views on the topic of NASCAR encouraging drivers to show more emotion and use their bumpers a little bit more.

“I would like to see more emotion,” Patrick said. “That’s why we watch sports, isn’t it? We want to see someone get excited. We want to see someone be happy. We want to see someone mad. That’s kind of what makes sports. Otherwise it’s a TV show. It’s pre-programmed.” It sounds as if Patrick won’t be afraid to use her bumper.

“When earning respect of other drivers, you walk this very fine line of being more of a wimp out there and taking their [stuff] and not doing anything about it and also being too overly aggressive and making yourself look silly,” Patrick said. “I had to do it in IndyCar, and I would like to think I earned all of their respect.

“It’s going to come from racing with these guys. … If somebody does something to me I don’t like, you have to expect you get something in return. And I have fenders now, so that’s pretty exciting. But I plan to respect everybody from the start, and if they give me a reason to not respect them, then I won’t.”