readOGR not reading in prj file?

readOGR(dir.path, "argv2")
it seems "argv2" has to be the shapefile name not a variable name

My 'floodshapedir' and 'shapebase' are both variables with path stored
in.  Here's the function call with the strings explicitly passed.  I
don't think it's an issue with these paths.

dFloodRisk <- readOGR('FloodShapes', '2013Spring_Flood_Drawn', verbose=TRUE)

OGR data source with driver: ESRI Shapefile
Source: "FloodShapes", layer: "2013Spring_Flood_Drawn"
with 8 features
It has 2 fields

proj4string(dFloodRisk)

[1] NA

-- Vinh