Sarah Fisher
Sarah Marie Fisher is an American retired professional race car driver who competed in the Indy Racing League and the Indianapolis 500 intermittently from 1999 to 2010. She also raced in the NASCAR West Series in 2004 and 2005. Fisher took part in 81 IndyCar Series events, achieving a career-best finish of second at the 2001 Infiniti Grand Prix of Miami—the highest placing for a woman in the IRL until Danica Patrick's victory in the 2008 Indy Japan 300. In 2002, Fisher was the first female driver to win a pole position in a major American open-wheel race and competed in the Indianapolis 500 nine times, more than any other woman.
Fisher was born into an Ohioan family with a background in racing; she began competing at the age of five when her parents entered her in a quarter-midget race before progressing to karting three years later. She won three World Karting Association championships, and she subsequently progressed into sprint car racing, where her success was moderate. Fisher made her IRL debut at the final race of the 1999 season. During her eleven-year professional career, sponsorship problems limited her participation in the series. In 2008, Fisher established and drove for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing until her retirement at the end of 2010.
In retirement, Fisher focused full-time on Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, with drivers Ed Carpenter and Josef Newgarden achieving modest success with the team. She retained ownership of the team until she merged it with Ed Carpenter Racing, creating CFH Racing in 2010. In 2016, Fisher sold her stake in CFH Racing to focus on a full-time career in business in Indiana but remained with the team to help with sponsorship development. That year, she was hired as the IndyCar Series' official safety car driver, a role she shares with former driver Oriol Servià.
Early life and junior career
Sarah Marie Fisher was born on October 4, 1980, in Columbus, Ohio. An only child, she hailed from a family with a racing background; Fisher's father Dave, a self-employed mechanical engineer, competed in go-kart events against race car drivers Mark Dismore and Scott Goodyear. Her mother Reba, a middle-school teacher in technology, is the daughter of Evelyn Grindell, one of Ohio's early woman aviators, and drove go-karts in the backyard of her house. The couple met at a go-kart street race in Commercial Point. Fisher's grandparents owned a go-kart track in Richwood and her uncle was a local engine builder. She grew up in Commercial Point, a small farming village south of Columbus, and was educated at Columbus School for Girls from preschool to third grade. As a young child, Fisher tried several sports, including soccer, swimming, and gymnastics; auto racing was the one thing that appealed most to her. She was taken by her parents to the local race track to watch her father compete.Fisher was given her first car, a Barbie pedal vehicle, at age four. She began racing at age five when her parents fitted her into a blue and white quarter-midget car she used for three years. Fisher's father devised a schedule to enter her at small, indoor tracks during the winter, and both her parents supported her early racing career. She cited Jacques Villeneuve, Steve Kinser and Dave Blaney as her racing heroes. When Fisher turned eight, she began racing go-karts in her age group on the East Coast of the United States, and learned of how karts worked from her father. She joined the World Karting Association, winning the Grand National Championship four times in 1991, 1993 and 1994; she was also Circleville Points Champion in 1993. Fisher and her family viewed her karting days as a family activity, not as a precedent to progression in the sport. She was introduced to endurance karting in 1994, learning endurance and patience, and reinforcing her smooth driving style. Fisher's father raised the seat in her car by and cut down on its front to improve her visibility, and she won the 1995 Dirt Track Racing Round-Up Rookie of the Year award.
In late 1995, John Bickford, the stepfather of Jeff Gordon, recommended Fisher to the Lyn St. James Foundation Driver Development Program and paid for all expenses. Fisher disliked the school because it focused mainly on the media and preparing the body and mind to drive and not on what the driver is doing inside the car. Not long after, her father purchased a sprint car and she drove eight World of Outlaws races. The following February, Fisher progressed to a car and raced locally with the All Star Circuit of Champions during the season. She competed in all 62 races of the 1997 ASCoC, gaining a season-best finish of second at Eldora Speedway. Her father broke his arm at the start of the 1998 season, preventing him from rebuilding two engines to allow Fisher to continue racing. With her father's help, Fisher reconstructed both engines; he felt it would be better for her to compete against top-level sprint car drivers. During the year, Fisher participated in forty events; by the end of the season she had learned the techniques of driving sprint cars.
By 1999, Fisher and her father sought an alternative series to enter, following a suggestion from the CEO of one of her sponsors that she drive on pavement surfaces and not on dirt. Fisher's parents visited multiple tracks to sample three divisions of asphalt racing and they decided to enter her into the United States Auto Club Midget division, which was the most competitive form of racing they saw. Fisher also drove in Automobile Racing Club of America and National Alliance of Midget Auto Racing-sanctioned events on asphalt ovals in the Midwestern United States. She won five feature races of the 23 she entered and broke Winchester Speedway's lap record. That year, Fisher graduated seventh overall in a class of 178 with honors and an A average from Teays Valley High School in Ashville, Ohio. She achieved a grade point average of 4.178, earning induction into the National Honor Society, and took 30 post-secondary credits at Columbus State Community College. Fisher enrolled at The Ohio State University in August 1999 to pursue a part-time undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering before she received a telephone call following the first day of classes inviting her to test an Indy Racing League car.
Racing career
1999–2003
Fisher's victory at Winchester Speedway attracted the attention of Team Pelfrey owner Dale Pelfrey. She signed a three-year contract to drive for Pelfrey on August 24, 1999, and passed an IRL-sanctioned rookie test at Las Vegas Motor Speedway supervised by former driver Johnny Rutherford six days later, becoming the youngest person to do so at the time. Fisher forwent a race at the track, wanting first to broaden her experience. She also chose not to enter the U.S. F2000 National Championship, a series in which several IRL drivers participated to further their careers. Since most of her previous experience was in dirt racing, she worked to familiarize herself with competing on asphalt tracks. Fisher made her IRL debut at Texas Motor Speedway, qualifying in seventeenth place, making her the youngest person to take part in an IRL event. She finished the race in 25th place, having driven into the pit lane after 66 laps to retire with a failed timing chain.Team owner Derrick Walker sought a young driver who could appeal to both fans and his sponsors; he felt Fisher was the ideal person. Prior to the race in Texas, Walker talked to Fisher about driving for his newly formed IRL team that would be built around an American rookie driver after one of his employees asked whether he considered her. After an attorney helped Fisher terminate her contract with Pelfrey on January 18, 2000, she signed a three-year contract to drive for Walker Racing and moved to Indianapolis to be close to the team. She worked with four-time Indianapolis 500 winner and driver coach Al Unser. Fisher missed the season's first race at Walt Disney World Speedway but finished 13th at Phoenix International Raceway. After two races with the team, Walker moved Fisher from an outdated Riley & Scott car to an Oldsmobile-powered Dallara. Two races later, she became the third—and youngest—woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500; she started nineteenth but retired on the 74th lap after a collision with Lyn St. James and Jaques Lazier, finishing 31st. Over the season, Fisher occasionally raced at the front of the field, becoming the youngest woman to achieve a podium position by finishing third, and the youngest female to lead a lap in the IRL in the Belterra Resort Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway. Her inexperience sometimes dropped her to the back of the running order in a race, and some drivers felt she was a risk in traffic. Fisher ended the year 18th in the drivers' standings and fans voted her Open Wheel Magazine Driver of the Year in the IRL category.
Fisher remained with Walker Racing for 2001, and was the first woman to compete full-time in the IRL. At the season's second race, the Infiniti Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead-Miami Speedway, she took second place, the best finish of her IRL career, and the highest for a woman until Danica Patrick's 2008 Indy Japan 300 win. Fisher qualified fifteenth for the Indianapolis 500 but retired after seven laps when her car understeered into the turn-two wall, collecting Scott Goodyear. Two races later, at Pikes Peak International Raceway for the Radisson Indy 200, Fisher came tenth, her second and final top-ten finish of 2001. During practice for the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway two weeks later, she crashed heavily in turn two and was hospitalized with neck pains. Later that day, IRL's director of medical services Henry Bock declared Fisher fit to race, and she finished in seventeenth place after qualifying a season-high second. She finished no better than eleventh in the final six races, and was nineteenth in the drivers' standings with 188 points. Fans voted Fisher the IRL's Most Popular Driver of 2001.
On April 8, 2002, Fisher requested a release from her contract with Walker Racing after it switched to the rival Championship Auto Racing Teams full-time, and problems with finding sponsorship from her performance in the latter half of 2001 made a full IRL campaign was unfeasible. Walker wanted to enter Fisher into the Toyota Atlantic Series as preparation for CART, which she did not want to do because of her belief of the prestige of the Indianapolis 500 and wanted to help the IRL become the United States' premier open-wheel racing series. Her season began at the fund-raising Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, where she finished third in the pro class and fifth overall. Her race engineer was Mark Weida. Two days later, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing hired Fisher to drive its 24 G-Force GF05C Infiniti car in place of the injured Robbie Buhl in the season's fourth round, the Firestone Indy 225, where she finished a year-best fourth.
Fisher was later signed to race in the Indianapolis 500 in May in Dreyer and Reinbold's No. 23 car. She qualified ninth and finished the race 24th. A month later, Fisher signed to drive the rest of the season with Dreyer and Reinbold. After leading four laps for eighth at the Michigan Indy 400, Fisher set a Kentucky Speedway track record at to earn the pole position for the Belterra Casino Indy 300, the first time a woman had claimed a pole in American open-wheel racing. In 10 races, she scored 161 points for 18th in the championship standings. Fisher was voted by fans as IRL's Most Popular Driver for the second successive year.
In September 2002, Fisher drove a MP4-17 car in a demonstration run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway's road course in the 2002 United States Grand Prix. Fisher secured sponsorship to race the season-opening Toyota Indy 300 and Dreyer & Reinbold changed manufacturers to Dallara and engines to Chevrolet. At Phoenix International Speedway, the year's second race, she took her only top-ten finish of 2003, placing eighth. At the Indianapolis 500, she qualified in 24th; in the race, she retired after spinning into the turn-three wall due to an engine malfunction after fourteen laps, bruising her left foot and finishing in 31st. However, Fisher had received enough sponsorship funding at Indianapolis to finish the season. At the Richmond race, she had her season's best qualifying performance, recording the second-fastest lap time. Fisher did not start the Firestone Indy 225 at Nazareth Speedway because of a severe back contusion from a serious accident. She finished her 14-race season 18th in the points standings, scoring 211 points, because she drove an underpowered car and had difficulty remaining on the same lap as the race leader. Fans voted Fisher the IRL's Most Popular Driver Award for the third year in a row.