Sarah Fisher is working her way through the NASCAR ranks. Credit: AP

Fisher starting from scratch in stock cars

It's been a long, strange journey for Sarah Fisher from most popular driver in the Indy Racing League to the minor leagues of stock car racing.

Before anyone had heard of Danica Patrick, Fisher was the driver who appeared ready to finally clear a path for women into open-wheel racing.

Fisher did not finish her last race at California Speedway. Credit: AP

She came up on the dirt tracks of the Midwest, earning the respect of some of the toughest drivers in American racing. That reputation, as well as a handful of victories in midgets and sprint cars, helped the determined Fisher reach the IRL in 1999 for one race after becoming, at 19, the youngest driver to pass the league's rookie test.

In 2000, she raced in the Indianapolis 500 for the first time and later that season finished third at Kentucky Speedway, the youngest woman in IRL history to lead laps and record a podium finish. The next year, Fisher became the fastest woman qualifier at Indy with a four-lap speed over 229 mph, won a pole at Kentucky and finished a career-best second in Homestead -- still the best IRL finish by a woman.

In all, she started five Indy 500s and was voted the series' most popular driver three times. But it wasn't enough to ensure her future in the open-wheel sport.

Even as she became a fan favorite and showed her skill, Fisher struggled to find sponsorship, found herself racing in subpar equipment and wound up fading out of the IRL and looking for a ride _ any ride.

At her bleakest moment, along came Richard Childress, one of the elite team owners in NASCAR.

The two had a chance meeting in April 2004 at a Chevrolet public relations function in Washington, D.C.

"Richard asked me how things were going and I told him that it could be better," Fisher said. "He said, 'Hey, if you ever decide to drive a stock car, call me. So, I did."

Childress got Fisher a test in a late-model stock car and liked what he saw. He helped her put together a deal for this year, driving in the NASCAR Grand National West series for Bill McAnally with the support of the Drive for Diversity program.

"I had followed her career and I knew what kind of driver she was," Childress said. "I knew she wasn't afraid of speed."

So far, her introduction to stock car racing has been a mixed bag.

Fisher didn't finish better than 12th in her first four starts, but has managed three top-10s in her last five races. In her most recent start, Fisher qualified sixth at California Speedway, but failed to finish the race because of engine failure.

Still, she insists she is enjoying her transition to the bigger, heavier stock cars.

"We've been running in the top 10 now, and that was our goal; just get solid runs," Fisher said, smiling. "I think Richard's goal in sending me out here was to get laps and learn how to drive a heavy race car."

Most of the NASCAR West schedule is on tracks a mile or less in length, which is just fine with Fisher.

"There's not a better way to learn this than to get on real short tracks and learn how to manipulate and bend the car to get it to do what you want it to do," she said. "Trying to learn what these cars require in all different areas is our goal and we've been doing pretty good at it. I'm pretty happy."

Fisher acknowledges she misses the IRL, but mostly the people.

"I made a lot of good friends in the IRL," she said.

She also insisted she feels no jealousy or bitterness about the attention being given to budding IRL star Patrick, who caused a sensation by leading the Indy 500 and finishing fourth -- both firsts for a woman -- or three-time Toyota Atlantic winner Katherine Legge or Erin Crocker, who raced in her first Busch Series event last weekend in Richmond.

"I think they've all been in training," Fisher said. "My training was the IRL, unfortunately. I was thrown into the limelight because that's where the story was at. When I did it six years ago, there wasn't anybody else in the sport. But they're all my age, so they've had more tuning time, you might say.

"Katherine Legge was overseas racing and training, Danica was both overseas and running Toyota Atlantic in training and Erin Crocker's been running some sprint cars and Silver Crown in training. They were all preparing themselves to get to this state and, luckily, they all met very good car owners that are taking care of them and putting them in good equipment. It's just awesome."

The plan for Fisher called for her to drive a couple of Busch Series races later this season, but Childress, who also has Allison Duncan driving in the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Racing Series at Stockton, Calif., isn't so sure about that at this point.

The owner of Richard Childress Racing, which fields three cars in the Nextel Cup Series and also competes in the Busch Series, said he has been somewhat disappointed by the McAnally team's progress.

"You can't say it's all her," Childress said. "You have to look at everything involved. We're looking at her and Allison Duncan and we're going to test them and maybe another driver this week (at Caraway Speedway in Asheboro, N.C.) and see what we're looking at.

"We were hoping we'd be a little further along with the program to where we could run Sarah in some Busch races," he added. "We'll definitely finish our commitment with the West races and see what we're going to do after that. After the test we'll kind of have a better idea of what we're going to do."

Meanwhile, Fisher will continue to try to learn a new craft and wait for her chance to move up.

"I'm only 24 and that's still young. Danica is 23," Fisher said. "But I have a lot of experience and I think that's playing a big key in this. I'm right where I want to be and, to me, it's not starting over, it's just learning a new style of racing.

"These are a different group of people and I've got to pay my dues all over again. I've got to show them that I have the capability to do this. And I have absolutely no problem doing that."