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HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- And then there were three.
Venezuelan racer Milka Duno will join Danica Patrick and Sarah Fisher in the IndyCar Series, beginning with the April 29 race at Kansas City.
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Duno, 34, joins the series along with a new team, Samax Motorsport, and a new sponsor, CITGO. She plans to run 10 of the 17 race this season, including the Indianapolis 500.
"It's a special moment for me, just something I've been dreaming about for a long time," Duno said Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where she made the announcement. "It's difficult to explain how I feel because I have so many emotions -- a little nervous, a little anxiety, very excited.
"It's a big step for me. It's going to be very tough because it's a very competitive championship and I'll be racing ovals and everything will be new to me. But I'm trying to learn whatever I need to learn."
Duno has virtually no open-wheel racing experience, having made her reputation in sports cars, winning three times in the Grand American Racing Series and being part of the second-place team at this year's prestigious Daytona 24-Hour race. The latter is the highest finish by a woman in the 45-year history of the Daytona race.
Duno also is well educated off the track, with four advanced engineering degrees.
But she will need plenty of work before making her race debut and Kansas Speedway.
"Our goal is to get eight days on track (for testing) before we actually get to the race weekend," said team owner Peter Baron. "I've worked with lots of teams and drivers and Milka has the ability to communicate both engineering information and what she feels in the car as well as anybody I've worked with."
Indy Racing League boss Brian Barnhart said series officials will work with Duno as much as possible.
"Just like with Marco Andretti last year, we want her to get as much on-track experience before her first race as possible," Barnhart said. "We'll even consider putting other cars out there with her to replicate racing situations."
Patrick, starting her third season, has had the top racing performances among the handful of women who have run in American open-wheel cars. She finished fourth three times in her rookie season in 2005, including at Indy.
Fisher, the most popular driver in the series before losing her ride, returned to run two races for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing at the end of last season and will run the entire 2007 season for the same team.
