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Indianapolis Business Journal, May 12, 2008 by Schoettle, Anthony

A group of motorsports journalists stood open-mouthed along the wall of the Texas Motor Speedway in 1999 as they watched 19-year-old Sarah Fisher, fresh from the sprint car and dirt track circuits. zip past veteran open-wheel racers Buddy Lazier and Billy Boat.

A murmur emanated from the onlookers as they watched Fisher pass on the outside in her first practice laps in an Indy Racing League car, a considerable feat for the best driver. This fresh-faced girl from Commercial Point, Ohio, was no circus sideshow.

"You could see from the beginning, she could really drive," said veteran motor-sports journalist Robin Miller.

What happened to Fisher over the next nine years is equally amazing - and mystifying - to those same motorsports experts who watched her in Texas.

The [Indy Racing League] system failed Sarah Fisher," Miller said. "Because she never got the backing, nobody really knows what her true potential as a race driver is. And we may never know."

Though some consider her career dead, the doe-eyed, iron-willed Fisher is trying to rewrite the final lines of her open-wheel epitaph. At the end of February, Fisher, 27, launched Sarah Fisher Racing, which is headquartered in a space about the size of a three-car garage off Rockville Road, east of Lynhurst Drive. Compared to IRL behemoths like Team Penske or Andretti Green Racing, Fisher is operating out of a shoebox - and on a shoestring.

In a world where it takes $7 million a year to run a single car near the front, Fisher is getting by on about a 10th of that, which she scraped together from personal savings, family, friends and a few loyal sponsors.

Racing in a league where the big teams spend $50,000 to modify a rearview mirror to gain a tenth of a mile an hour, Fisher will come to qualifying at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this month with no wind tunnel testing, far fewer practice laps than most of her competitors, and a single car and engine that she cannot afford to crash.

"Her margin of error is pretty thin," said Tim Frost, a Chicago-based motorsports business expert.

Some call Fisher's formation of her own team a brave, pioneering initiative. Others call it a desperate move by a driver nobody will hire. But for the first time, Fisher has control of her own destiny.

"Her career, maybe her entire career, depends on how she does this May," said Lyn St. James, the second woman, after Janet Guthrie, to race in the Indianapolis 500. "Her results this year will have a huge impact on the [sponsorship] support she can get for next year. She has a lot of pressure on her shoulders."

With her primary sponsor, ResQ Pure Power Energy Drink, recently backing out of its financial commitment, her performance this month has become that much more important.

Fisher has enough resources to continue her quest to race the Indianapolis 500, but it's not clear that she'll be able to race in Kentucky, Chicago, Texas or Richmond.

Quoting retired tennis great Billie Jean King, Fisher says, "Pressure is a privilege."

Familial support

Walking around her garage days before the Speedway opened and wearing jeans, a T-shirt and flip-flops, Fisher said being surrounded by people who believe in her makes all the difference.

Fisher's husband, Andy O'Gara, is her crew chief. Her father-in-law, John O'Gara, is general manager. Fisher's father, Dave Fisher, who owns Fisher Fabrication in Ohio, is also on staff.

Her remaining sponsors - including AAA and Tag Heuer - are fiercely loyal.

"Sarah has some rare qualities," said Gary Michelson, AAA senior vice president. "She's extremely approachable, very good with children, has a good sense of family and a good sense of humor. She also has the drive it takes to make it in a tough sport like this."

While optimistic, Fisher remains realistic. She hopes to qualify in the middle of the field for the Indy 500. She thinks if all goes well, a top 10 finish isn't beyond reach. Her best finish in six previous Indy 500s was 18th in 2007.

"She's never done great at Indianapolis, but her strength is oval racing, so she's got a shot," Miller, the sportswriter said.

Eye to the future

Fisher isn't the first woman to own a team. Guthrie in the late 1970s and St. James in the late 1990s had short, mostly unsuccessful, forays into team ownership.

"It simply ended up being too much," St. James said.

Fisher isn't looking at Indianapolis as a one-off event. In 2009, she intends to run all the oval mess and perhaps the entire IRL season. In five to 10 years - even after her own driving days are done - she wants to operate a multi-car team. Down deep, Fisher hopes to give other women drivers the opportunity she never had.

Despite an aw-shucks demeanor and cherubic smile, Fisher has a hard edge that some motorsports sources said gives her a glimmer of hope against staggering odds.

"She's determined," said Derrick Walker, an open-wheel team owner who employed Fisher in 2000 and 2001. "She has an absolute will to succeed that you don't see very often."

Fisher's will to win has often come crashing into a brick wall few can explain. Since her first race for the underfunded Team Pelfrey in Texas in 1999 - where her timing chain broke and she finished 25th - Fisher's career has been filled with glimpses of promise followed by flame-out performances.