Motorsports

Fisher home, and she has company

Time to play IndyCar Jeopardy. She is the most successful female driver in the history of the IndyCar Series, voted the most popular member of the racing circuit three times. Her photos have been splashed across the pages of Glamour, People and Newsweek, and she has traded quips with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.

By DAVE SCHEIBER
Published March 28, 2007

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Time to play IndyCar Jeopardy. She is the most successful female driver in the history of the IndyCar Series, voted the most popular member of the racing circuit three times. Her photos have been splashed across the pages of Glamour, People and Newsweek, and she has traded quips with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.

If you hit the buzzer and yelled out Danica Patrick - sorry, but thanks for playing. Your consolation prize is knowing that you have plenty of company.

The correct question: Who is Sarah Fisher?

And while we're at it: Why haven't more people heard of her?

Five years before Patrick became a household name, for both her driving prowess and heavily marketed sex appeal, Fisher owned the road as open-wheel racing's top woman driver.

Yet unlike Patrick, who landed a ride on the well-established Rahal Letterman team and reaped the benefits of major sponsorship, Fisher couldn't find the funding to keep her in the driver's seat, and she vanished from the scene in 2005, forgotten in the avalanche of Danicamania. It was almost as if she had never been there in the first place - or the second place, which is where she finished at Miami-Homestead in 2001, the best result ever by a female in Indy-style competition.

When the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg revs into action Sunday, Fisher, 26, and Patrick, 25 and now with Andretti Green Racing, will be at the starting line. It will mark the first time in IndyCar that two women have competed together on a road course.

But all Fisher has on her mind is getting her second IndyCar career on track, something she's doing without her sponsorship fully in place yet.

"I feel like this is absolutely the start of a new run for me," she said by phone from her home in Indianapolis. "I'm back with my old team, Dreyer & Reinbold, and everything has been going great. ... Not only was I lucky to run at Indy when I was 19 - I'm lucky that I'll get to do it again at 26."

In 2000, Fisher became the third woman, after Janet Guthrie and Lyn St. James, to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 finishing 31st after an accident. Two years later, at 21, Fisher posted the fastest 500 qualifying time in history for a woman at 229.439 mph, starting ninth and finishing 24th.

And in 2002 at Kentucky Speedway, she became the first woman to win the pole position for a major North American open-wheel race.

But despite Fisher's success, sponsorship money was running low, and she was intrigued by a new challenge: NASCAR.

"I wanted to try something different," she said. "I was doing well with the Indy cars, yet there wasn't an opportunity for me to step it up to a place where I knew for sure I could win. And I had (legendary NASCAR team owner) Richard Childress calling me and asking me to go run one of his stock cars. Ding-ding-ding - say yes."

Out, then back again

Fisher competed in the Grand National West Series, in the minor leagues of NASCAR. She notched four top 10 finishes and enjoyed the experience. But sponsorship money was tight at RCR, and she was not high on the team's list of priorities.

Meanwhile, she still felt the tug of open-wheel racing. She attended the 2005 Indianapolis 500 as a spectator in the suite of her old team, Dreyer & Reinbold.

A year earlier, she finished 21st in the race. Now she watched Patrick nearly win the 500, finishing fourth behind Dan Wheldon and becoming a pop-culture sensation. She felt mixed emotions: happy for Patrick but wishing she could have been competing herself.

"Danica's been in great situations to be able to run out front," she said. "It's still not an easy thing to do. But she's had good equipment, and I never was really in that place."

Last year, Fisher left racing altogether. She began taking online courses in marketing from the New York Institute of Technology and became an account executive for ignition, an Atlanta marketing company.

But she would fly home to Indianapolis to watch races and ran into Dennis Reinbold. Her old team needed an experienced driver for the last two races of 2006. She jumped at the chance. At Kentucky, Fisher finished 12th and Patrick eighth in their first head-to-head meeting.

That led to a new contract and a determination to pick up her IndyCar career where she left off in 2004.

'The girl next door'

It is a career with roots in her childhood love of racing, starting when her parents gave her a quarter-midget at age 5. She went on to become a World Karting champion and, in her teens, a dirt track national champion. Her father, Dave, once served as her crew chief. Now her fiance, Andy O'Gara, handles the job.

"We're really excited to have Sarah back, and she's very excited, too," Reinbold said. "We really believe in her ability and think she can run up front and win races."

Fisher's upbeat style, big smile and engaging laugh that punctuates her conversations have made her a hit with the fans. "I'm kind of like the girl next door," Fisher said. "I can relate to lots of people because I understand where they came from. People are just people."

Her return to the IndyCar scene, coupled with the recent announcement that newcomer Milka Duno will race in the 500, means IndyCar could soon have three women vying for dominance.

"I want to be the best out there," Patrick told the Times last week in Miami. "And for sure I want to be the best girl out there."

The presence of Fisher and Duno mean she will no longer be the sole spokeswoman for the sport, but Patrick added that "everyone has to hold their own out there."

Fisher will now compete against the woman who ascended to the throne she abdicated. She and Patrick have only met in passing, but a rivalry is almost unavoidable.

"Danica lives in Phoenix, and she hasn't approached me," Fisher said. "And it's not a bowling league. I'm not going to go be chummy. She does her own thing and that's cool. But I'm not seeking a friendship."

Patrick's near rock-star status derives not only from her driving ability but her Hollywood looks, which promoters don't hesitate to play up. Fisher, whose image veers more toward wholesome than glamorous, said she has no problem with the way Patrick is marketed:

"It's growing the sport and that's fine. But that's definitely not me. It's not my personality."

Still, you can find a photo of Fisher in a red evening gown on sarahfisher.com, her Web site.

"That wasn't me wanting to dress up," she said with a laugh. "But if someone wants me to put on a red dress to smile for a picture, that's fine because it's part of the sport. You have to highlight that I'm a female. But truthfully, I'd rather just sit here and run my remote control car."

[Last modified March 27, 2007, 23:19:13]