Sarah Fisher should be feeling good but she's not. Fisher finished the Indianapolis 500 last Sunday for the second time and bettered her previous best finish. Still, she doesn't have a full time ride and may be looking for "other opportunities."
Fisher was a teenage phenom when she got the opportunity to move from sprint cars directly into the big league of the IRL. A few years ago, she finished second at Homestead, achieving the highest placing for a woman in IndyCar racing.
In Kentucky in 2002, she became the first woman to win an IndyCar pole.
But, according to the Associated Press, she failed to finish 21 races and had only two other finishes in the top five in nearly 50 events. Sometimes her early exits were due to equipment failure and sometimes because of mistakes on the track.
Three of her starts in the 500 were due to crashes and her only finish prior to this year was in 24th.
Last Sunday she finished 21st, three laps down from the leader in the race shortened by 20 laps by rain.
The AP quotes Derrick Walker, who gave Fisher her shot at the big time, as saying that she may have been pushed too fast, too soon. He suggests she might have been better off spending a year or two in the open wheeled minors, Toyota Atlantic or Infiniti Pro series.
That is, in fact, the path being taken by a lady who could give Fisher a run for the attention afforded a female in a male-dominated sport.
Danica Patrick, who has been soldiering in Toyota Atlantic for several years, will be invited to join the Rahal Letterman team next season if a sponsor can be found. Rahal Letterman won this year's 500 with driver Buddy Rice.
Fisher, according to AP, bristles at talk suggesting she is not good enough to compete in the IRL, as well as at remarks credited to Patrick that her performance so far has hindered the cause of women in major racing series.
Her relative success last weekend should help her cause. She has consistently been one of the most popular drivers in the IRL and, off the track, has acquitted herself very well.
However, she reportedly has been talking about returning to the sprint car circuit and would jump at an offer of a NASCAR ride.
Speaking of the 500, we may have to wait longer on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend for the start. ABC, which has carried the race live or by tape delay for the past 40 years, has seen ratings decline the past several years.
The race traditionally has started at 11 AM, Indianapolis time, noon our time. That makes it 9 AM on the west coast, a tad early on a Sunday morning for the general public. The network cites numbers that show that more TVs get turned on as the day continues on Sundays.
The AP quotes Ken Ungar, senior VP for business affairs, as saying that the IRL will evaluate the suggestion. The racing series has a contract through 2009 for its events to be on ABC and ESPN.
However, he notes that moving back the start significantly would mean that the 300,000 fans who attend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway each year would be headed home in the dark.
That brings up another suggestion by some at ABC ... holding the Indy 500 under the lights.
No question that racing at night is exciting. The glint of artificial light off shiny, brightly painted cars adds a sparkle to the scene.
NASCAR has discovered that with its July Daytona race, the Memorial Day weekend race at Charlotte and a short track race at Richmond, which draw good ratings numbers in prime time.
Ray Harroun, winner of the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, would be spinning if things went that far.
Also a traditionalist in things like this, I wasn't happy when they started holding it on Sunday instead of the traditional Memorial Day. But that's the times we live in.