We here at SPORTSbyBROOKS have taken to showing this mashup when we talk about female racers. We’ve covered both Danica Patrick and Ashley Force at some length and pairing them up made sense on a few levels, some more obvious than others.
Here’s our favorite reason, though: they’re women that are winners. (Finally, in one case.) We all love winners. We all want to associate with winners. Can they do it again? They’re young enough that we have to grant them time. After all, Ashley’s dad still wins races and the peak age for an open-wheel racer is higher than in most sporting events.
Which leads us to Sarah Fisher. As pointed out by JALOPNIK when she endorsed Hillary Clinton this week, she’s never finished higher than 17th. She’s only 18 months older than Danica Patrick and has years of American racing on Patrick. So why does USA TODAY find Fisher scraping for sponsor dollars while Patrick rolls in the millions?
We sure as hell hope it’s not because Danica doesn’t mind using everything she has to sell her product.
After all, open-wheel racing and NASCAR have converged on one salient fact: money wins races. If Patrick can bring in the cash through any means necessary, she’ll have a better chance of winning.
In Ashley’s case, she has Daddy’s money and training. We don’t hold that against her. Hell, that pretty much explains Kyle Petty’s career.
Still, as much as we don’t need to see our lady drivers gussied up for the prom, we do want to see more decoration on one part of Sarah Fisher by Indy 500 Race Day: her car.
That’s a kind of nudity we don’t ever need to see on her again.
Clarification: Sarah Fisher has never ranked higher than 17th in year-end standings. She has indeed taken the podium multiple times (Kentucky in 2000, Homestead in 2001). Needless to say, this only reinforces our original concern. It would seem she can race. (Thanks to commenter bodellg for the assist.)
3:06 pm on May 8th, 2008
To say she’s never finished higher than 17th is misleading. She actually has two podium finishes, including a 2nd @ Homestead a few years back. She’s never finished higher than 17th in final standings, mostly because she’s been with teams that aren’t competitive.
3:10 pm on May 8th, 2008
That’s incredibly helpful. I looked at her standings as I wrote the piece but figured I misunderstood her card at ESPN.com and relied on the experts’ touch. Thanks for this; I’ll update the piece accordingly.
7:07 pm on May 8th, 2008
She can race. I think much of it has to do with timing. IRL has struggled so much in the States, that Danica really gave them something to market. NASCAR on the other hand was doing well, so teams were less likely to take the chance on her, plus there might have been a little fear of making her bigger than the sport. And that may be justified, there’s no doubt that if Danica left Indy racing that it would have a tough time recovering from it. And there’s also, sad to say, what you alluded to, in that Danica has been marketed as much as a sex symbol as a racer and I just don’t see that in Sarah. Sorry about the length of the comment, but hot chicks and cars get my attention, lol.