text4cars.com sponsoring a Indy Car driver in the New York Times today!
When Driver’s Sponsor Disappears, Her Resolve Doesn’t
By DAVE CALDWELL
Published: May 23, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS — Not long after word got out this month that the driver Sarah Fisher had lost her primary corporate sponsor, which is as bad as losing all of her tires, fans stopped her at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and offered more than sympathy.
Sarah Fisher, one of three women who will start the Indy 500, has received about $30,000 from fans since she lost her primary sponsor.
They gave her money, the most precious material in racing. One fan wrote her a check for $100. Another fan gave her $20, with an apology that he wished it were more. Including those who mailed in checks, Fisher said, her race team received about $30,000.
“It gives me goose bumps,” she said Thursday.
Of the three women in Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 — Danica Patrick and Milka Duno are the others — Fisher is the only team owner. She is the first female driver/owner to make the Indy 500 since Janet Guthrie in 1978, but the joint venture has been rugged since it began this year.
She had planned to drive in three IndyCar races this season, but when money promised by an energy-drink manufacturer never materialized, Fisher, 27, was left with just enough to pay the bills to cover what will be her seventh Indy 500 as a driver.
On Thursday, Fisher announced that a new company, Text4Cars.com, would be her primary sponsor for the Indy 500. She and her husband of eight months, Andy O’Gara, should have enough money to go to three races, after all.
When Fisher and her husband, who is also her crew chief, decided last August to leave the Dreyer & Reinbold team to pursue a mutual dream and start their own team, they knew the venture would be difficult. It has been all that, and more.
“To have had the pressure she’s had put on her, I don’t think anybody could have bigger shoulders,” O’Gara said.
Although Fisher is a popular and skilled driver — she will start 22nd on Sunday — the transition to owning a team has cost her and her husband at least $100,000 of their own money, she said. The team has six full-time employees, who often multitask.
She and her husband still think they made a good decision to start a team, because it has a potentially higher upside than had they both stayed at Dreyer & Reinbold.
“I thought they were nuts when they came up with the idea,” said John O’Gara, Andy’s father, who has worked for several racing teams over a 30-year career and helps manage Sarah Fisher Racing.
Duno, a Venezuelan who is now driving for Dreyer & Reinbold, said that Fisher had persevered. With a coy smile, Duno pointed out that several drivers failed to make the 33-car field this year — all men. Duno said: “How many guys are outside? You are here because you earned your place.”
Fisher has been through a money crunch before. She drove in 48 IndyCar Series races between 1999 and 2004, winning a pole position for a 2002 race in Kentucky. She left to pursue a career as a stock-car driver in Nascar’s Grand National division.
Although Fisher was part of Richard Childress’s developmental program and posted four top-10 finishes in the West Series in 2005, sponsorship money dried up. She returned to Dreyer & Reinbold for two races in 2006.
She raced full time for Dreyer & Reinbold last year, finishing in the top 10 twice in 17 races and coming in 18th at Indy, but she and O’Gara had decided by the end of the season to start their own team.
The team co-owner Dennis Reinbold said: “It’s a tough undertaking, but they had capable people who knew what they were doing and could pull it off. I know the kind of work level it takes to get to that stage.”
They are sticking to their original plan, which calls for Fisher to drive for a few more years before she and O’Gara start a family. By then, they figure, the team will be strong enough for Fisher to name another driver so she can concentrate on management.
On April 8, at the ribbon-cutting at the team’s new shop in Indianapolis, Fisher announced that the new ResQ Pure Energy Power Drink would be the primary sponsor for three races, including Indianapolis. But now, Fisher said, that sponsor has disappeared.
Messages left at the company’s headquarters in Gulf Breeze, Fla., were not returned, but Fisher said: “They’ve come up with different excuses. They’ve said different things about it every day. I have bigger things to focus on.”
The race is one of them. Each of the 33 drivers in the field is expected to receive about $200,000 for making the race. The top 10 drivers in last year’s race each received at least $275,000. A top-10 finish for Fisher would be almost like a victory.
She has had to cut back her preparation for the race. It was so windy at the track on Sunday that she cut short a practice run. She explained that she had an investment to protect — her own. “That was the first time the owner took over,” she said, smiling.
She signed associate sponsors, and her longstanding sponsors have kicked in extra funds. It has been a tense month, but she has a chance to race. Somewhere on her car will be a decal saluting the fans who chipped in.
“We’ve worked really hard to get to this point,” her husband said, “and we’re not turning back.”
