A young person who is fast becoming a celebrity will be represented in Seneca County this weekend. The Indy Car driven by Sarah Fisher, who seems to get more and more successful each event in the Indy Racing League, will be on tonight (Friday) as a special attraction at Attica Raceway Park.

Fisher, a native of Columbus, who attends Butler University, set things buzzing two weeks ago with a second place finish in Florida. She was chasing down winner Sam Hornish as the checkered flag fell.

At the age of 20, Fisher has an advantage over other distaff drivers who preceded her. She is not the first woman to drive an Indy car. As Jack Arute reports in a column for ABCsports.com, Arlene Hiss was the first, at Phoenix International Raceway in 1976. She finished 14th and was running at the finish. That was in March.

In May of that year, Janet Guthrie was the first woman entered in the Indianapolis 500. She passed her driver’s test but a mechanical problem kept her from making a qualifying run.

Guthrie made the grid in 1977 and became the first woman to drive in “The Great American Race.” In ‘78, she finished ninth, which remains the highest finishing position for a woman driver in Indy 500 history.

In May of 1992, along came Lyn St. James, the only woman ever to win Rookie of the Year honors at the 500. She started in a total of seven 500’s and her sixth place in 1994 is the highest starting position for a woman.

But St. James never could find a spot on a team with the cubic money necessary to make her competitive. That, plus the fact that she was she was in her mid-40’s for her first Indy 500, put her behind the curve which favors the young, who have the time to learn the sport while they still have the eyesight and reflexes to perform.

Fisher, on the other hand, has some of the ingredients necessary to be a contender. She drives for the Derrick Walker Motorsports, one of the high rollers in the IRL, and is young, skilled and quick.

Her second place finish in the Infiniti Grand Prix in Miami created as much of a stir as the fact that Sam Hornish, a native of Bryan, Ohio, had swept the first two races of the season. It was the highest finish by a woman in an Indy Car race.

Fisher’s Indy Car will be at Attica Raceway Park as a special guest for the “Coors Spring Nationals” for ALMS Late Models. 410 Sprints also will be on the bill.

Bill Simpson has found another friend. We talked last week about the problems Simpson and his company, Simpson Motorsports Products, have had since NASCAR hinted that Dale Earnhardt’s seatbelt broke during his fatal crash in the Daytona 500.

Dr. Barry Myers, a biomechanical expert hired by The Orlando Sentinel newspaper to look at the autopsy photos, reported that whether or not the belt broke, Earnhardt could not have survived.

Now there is word, from Simpson, that a fan with a video camera captured images that show an emergency worker climbing into the car with a knife and cutting the seatbelt. It seems likely, based on what we know about emergency procedures, that the seatbelt would have been cut to free the victim. Its also not hard to believe that someone got a videotape of it.

One of the nastiest things about getting old is seeing the icons of your youth die. Another one of mine left earlier this month.

Ed “Big Daddy” Roth passed away April 4th after suffering a heart attack at the age of 69.

If you were like me, the creations of Big Daddy epitomized the California Custom Car Culture. He made artwork which just happened to also be a car or a motorcycle.

Classics like the Outlaw, Beatnik Bandit, Tweety Pie and Mysterion decorated our walls, cut from the pages of Rod & Custom, Car Craft, and Hot Rod. We dreamed of how good life would be is we had such a machine to do loops through downtown Tiffin and Hedges-Boyer Park.

Sic semper memories.