Monday, September 17, 2007

Sarah Fisher

Blonde Ambition
Sarah Fisher

Long blonde hair of the non-mullet variety at an auto race is almost unheard of. But golden locked Sarah Fisher has been the talk of the IndyCar series since debuting in 2000 at the age of 20 and becoming the third woman in the Indianapolis 500 and the youngest person to lead laps during an IRL IndyCar event. In 2001, Fisher finished second at the Homestead Miami Speedway, the best result ever by a woman. Fisher brings her exciting racing to Motown for the Grand Prix.

Growing up in Ohio and attending Ohio State University for a mechanical engineering degree, Fisher, 26, says she was excited to be racing in the Grand Prix. “It’s pretty neat. The first time I followed the Grand Prix in Detroit was when I was 16 years old,” she remembers. “I got to walk around on the cart with Walker Racing. It’s really neat to be part of IndyCar and come back here.”

Fisher started racing midget cars when she was five, after being inspired by her father’s racing career. “It started off as a family event, so it gave me something to take part in with my dad, because he traveled a lot growing up. To be able to go with him to races on the weekends was a lot of the way I could spend time with him,” Fisher says. “As I grew into it, I became more competitive as a person and enjoyed working on the cars and trying to make them go faster and the different things you can do to them technically to do that.”

Growing up, Fisher never doubted her racing career because of her gender. “As a young girl, I didn’t really care,” she says. “I was more focused on racing stunt cars with my dad and what they did. My peers really respected me because I had the ability to do so.”

Despite her position as a female in a male dominated sport, she doesn’t feel like being a woman should be the defining characteristic about her. “I think a lot of general fans might view me as a woman first, and that’s fine, because that attracts fans who aren’t regular sports or IndyCar fans to the sport,” she explains. “But the people who are already here, and are already IndyCar fans, don’t identify me as a woman driver anymore because they’ve seen what I’ve done on the track and I’ve been very successful, so it’s no longer being a female, it’s just being a driver.”

Yet because of her appeal and uniqueness as a female, Fisher has been placed into a spokesperson role in promoting the IRL through her ESPN.com blog and her numerous public appearances, which in turn has led Fisher to be named the fan-favorite driver four years running. But she has embraced this role. “To be able to speak on behalf of the IndyCar series and try to make open wheel grow to become the number one racing series in the world, it’s a big honor,” she says, “and the more that I can do to help with that effort, the more I’ll do.”

Fisher has had a tough season so far, but she says she is living out her dream everyday. “There’s a lot of dreams kids have, whether it’s becoming an astronaut or race car driver, if you put your head down and dig at it, you can make it happen,” she says. “The Indianapolis 500 is what I grew up dreaming about participating in — and I’ve done it six times and I hope to do it six more.” RDW

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