By Bruce Martin

Sarah Fisher spent last year’s Indianapolis 500 delivering posters promoting IndyCar Series racing and driver Vitor Meira as part of her marketing job as an account executive for Ignition.
At one time, she was considered one of the stars of the sport and would have been on that poster.
“When you are at Indy and you have an Ignition shirt on and you are just a marketing account executive, that stinks,” Fisher recalled. “Holding that banner behind Vitor Meira for an ESPN interview, I was like, ‘Man, what am I doing?’”
Fisher said her narcotic for racing is figuring out how to make race cars go faster and working with engineers, not developing a marketing proposal to promote the “new Snap-a-lope for Slim Jim.”
“This other thing just wasn’t what I loved,” Fisher said. “I woke up every morning saying, ‘Man, I want to get back in a race car. I just don’t have the opportunity yet.’
“So, when Dennis Reinbold (team owner at the Dreyer & Reinbold IndyCar team) called and offered me this chance, I was all over it. I really want this to work because this is what I enjoy doing.”
That opportunity has Fisher in a full-time ride, and she will compete in the Indy 500 for the first time since finishing 21st in 2004.
Fisher was once Indy-car racing’s starlet, long before anyone knew who Danica Patrick was. She was the 19 year old from Commercial Point, Ohio, who knew how to get her car up front and appeared destined for victory lane.
Not only was she the third female to compete in the Indianapolis 500 in 2000, joining Janet Guthrie in 1977 and Lyn St. James in 1992, she was the first female to win an IndyCar pole (Kentucky 2002). She also is the highest- finishing female in an IndyCar race, having placed second to Sam Hornish, Jr. at Homestead, Fla., in 2001.
But as her status in the sport grew, her career was being mismanaged by her then personal representative. After running two seasons with Walker Racing and two more seasons with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, she was out of a ride after 2003.
She drove in the 2004 Indianapolis 500 for Kelley Racing, but it appeared her Indy-car racing career was over.
Fisher has returned much more mature than when she left.
“It’s called growing up,” Fisher admitted. “When I started Indy cars at 19, I was just a kid out of high school. And it was so awesome to be able to come and compete here. But for a high school kid, I never got to flip burgers. I came right to the Indy 500. And that was a lot.
“When you grow up and you mature, it’s like filling out mentally. And I’ve done that, and I’m just really enthusiastic about getting a second chance at it.”
Her change in attitude is apparent, even to defending Indianapolis 500 winner Sam Hornish, Jr.
“She has some pretty good talent,” Hornish said. “I’ve known her since I was 11 years old. I’ve seen a change in her. I’m fortunate that I only had to take one race off in my Indy-car career, and that was enough to make me do whatever I had to do to get back to the next one.
“Your attitude changes when you have to sit there and watch it after you’ve been part of it for so long. It’s nice to be able to get back there and have another chance to do it.”
In 2005, Fisher didn’t so much leave Indy-car racing, she said Indy-car racing had left her. So, she joined Richard Childress Racing’s NASCAR operation as one of its diversity drivers. She left with her fiancé and competed in the NASCAR West Series, living out of a motor home.
But it didn’t take Fisher long to realize that she didn’t fit in to the team’s future.
“If RCR had put together a Busch program for me, which they didn’t, and if their marketing guy had actually Googled my name and found out I had actually run Indy, it might have made a difference,” she said. “They didn’t showcase a lot of the achievements that I made in Indy cars when I got there. The guy in charge of marketing there had no idea what I did in Indy cars, that I was on the podium or anything.”
Although her opportunities in NASCAR did not turn out positively, she enjoyed the experience of driving the stock cars.
“They are horrible,” she said. “They don’t stop, they don’t turn and they don’t accelerate, but they are a blast to drive. The techniques you use in a stock car are very similar to sprint cars. You really manhandle the car, get up on the wheel and manipulate what you want it to do.
“It is really fun, and I think those techniques I’ve learned really help me with an Indy car because it’s much more nimble.”
She is happy, however, to be back in the type of car that she knows fits her style.
“NASCAR is not the only series out there, and I’m glad to see Indy cars coming back,” Fisher said. “I love Indy cars. I grew up in Ohio. The Indy 500 was right next door. All the sprint-car guys and midget-car guys looked up to the Indy-car drivers. A lot of pure race fans adore it.
“We have to share how neat it is to those people who don’t watch TV 100 percent of the day.”
She believes it’s neat to have three women (Danica Patrick, Milka Duno) in this year’s field because corporate America has a lot of female leaders.
She has more in common with Champ Car driver Katherine Legge than with Indy-car driver Danica Patrick, who she admits she doesn’t really talk to.
“I don’t try to really talk to anybody,” Fisher said. “Let’s just say my teammate is Buddy Rice and end it right there.
“I'm the girl next door. I can relate to everybody in some sense. I feel like I’m a normal person who just gets to do a really cool job. And I can appreciate that everybody contributes to society, and I’m no better than the next guy.”
And Fisher had made a promise that she intends to keep.
“I can do this,” Fisher said. “I’ll do it better than I ever have before.”