June 3, 2025 • 37 mins
On this episode of Throttle Therapy, Katherine is joined by her longtime friend and fellow racing legend, Sarah Fisher. Sarah shares how her racing-obsessed family supported her driving from age four and how she now supports her son’s interest in racing. They discuss her nine starts in the Indy 500, how she passed the torch when she stopped driving, and her various ventures after retirement.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to this week's episode
(00:21):
of Throttle Therapy with Me Catherinelegg, and this week, I
am excited to introduce you to one of the people
who was close to me in age that I could
look up to when I first came over here. I
heard about her a little bit when I was racing
in England, but when I came over here, she was
really the gold standard and I wanted to be her
(00:45):
when I grew up. And as it turns out, we
are now friends and she's definitely helped and mentored and
been a really strong female role model in my life.
I don't I actually remember how Sarah and I met.
I just remember being fast friends with her. I think
we have the same outlook and attitude about racing, how
(01:10):
to go about being a woman in racing, And I
remember actually being disappointed that she retired and had kids
and are so selfish of me because it's something that
she really wanted to do and she's a great, terrific mum,
but I wanted her to race forever, and she came
(01:31):
at it from a very different angle than I did.
Her speciality was oval racing, and she came at it
from a very American oval racing background and I came
at it from a very European road racing background. And
somehow we could relate to each other, and I think
that's really cool. We've had generationally, starting with Janet Guthrie,
(01:54):
who we've had on the show, then Lint and James
also on the show, and then Sarah Fish, and then
there was obviously the influx of Me and Danika and
Simona and Beer and everybody that came kind of after that.
But she was, in my opinion, one of the really strong,
(02:15):
mentally capable, badass drivers that I could use this as
an example, and I'm proud to have her as a friend.
Sarah Fisher, Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of
Throttle Therapy with Me Catherine Legg And this week, I
am super excited, actually to have a friend of mine
(02:39):
on the show, and a friend of mine that has
is probably one of only a handful of people that
have walked the same life that I have. She was
one of the first people I was aware of when
I was a young up and coming driver and I
came to the States and I wanted to be her,
and so welcome, Sarah Fisher.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
How are you.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I'm doing good, Catherine. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
I know that it was a number of years in
the middle there where we weren't really connected. But when
I first came over to the USA, you were in
India at the time, you were like the mecha of
all girl drivers, because you know, you've had Janet gaserin,
you've had Vincent James, and they had been before us,
so you hear the the legend of them, if you like.
(03:26):
But you were actually out there doing it for fighting
and being a badass, and so when I grew up,
I wanted to be Sarah Fisher. You were also you
were somebody I definitely looked up to in a lot
of ways because you were doing it the way I
wanted to do it, which was kind of head down,
like get taken seriously as a race car driver, no bullshit,
(03:48):
you were no bullshit.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
That's been well, that's why that's a lot of why
I'm here. We've been friends for a long time and
in talking to all the various you know, people who
constantly ask me questions of you know, what girl racers
are out there, and you know what my opinions are,
And I've always been such an advocate for the bottom
line matters most So it doesn't really matter what you
(04:13):
look like, who you are, if you're a girl, if
you're a boy, or whatever it is. If you can
perform and you know you're out there, you know, not
just taking up space, but you're actually competing and doing
a good job, then you do deserve an opportunity. But
you shouldn't have an opportunity just because of being a
certain gender or looking some certain way. I've always been
(04:35):
very opinionated about that, and I think you're one of
those people in that category. So when I talk to
people about you know, you know, those who deserve an
opportunity because they're good and they are racing drivers, and
then there's those in the category that you know are
there because of other reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So the influences who race on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah, you're in my category. It's all I'm saying each
other's people.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I want to start off by going way way back.
I know because we're the same age go to the stop.
You had a different start to racing than I did
in some ways because I will let you go into it.
But you did a lot of really cool dirt stuff,
and like, why don't you tell the audience how you
came up through from when you were just a wee
(05:22):
lass back in the day.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, it was quite a bit different. I honestly don't
think I would be an Indy car if it wasn't
for the timing of Tony George and really having the
emphasis on those short track, pavement and dirt racers. Spent
most of my time on dirt. No, I don't think
many people realize that, but I I was just nineteen
(05:45):
my first Indy five hundred, So I spent one year
in pavement midgets, the USACK midgets. But that's where like
Tony Stewart came from, and Jason Leffler and those shining
star short track oval racers that Tony George was pushing
towards the indie car owners to explore.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So how old were you when you started racing?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
In general? I was just four and a half.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I think four and a half. Okay, I didn't know
that that's crazy. That explains a lot with your kids,
and we will get to that part in a bit.
But four and a half, Okay, I was nine, so
that's quite a bit different. So you literally have it
in your bones like you grew up with it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, My whole family was inter racing, and my uncle
Charlie still builds engines for a lot of the for
some world outlaw guys. My late uncle George was Dale
Blaney's crew chief for almost twenty years. Dale is Ryan
Blaney's uncle. That's what most people. Yeah, Dave Blaney's brother,
(06:46):
Ryan's uncle, So that was uncle George. My dad was
primarily stopped his racing sprint cards to focus on me,
which I wouldn't be here without that. And then even
my mom and dad met racing go karts when they
were fourteen fifteen years old.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
So did you.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
She did?
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, she raced. She beat my dad in a little
street race in Commercial Point, Ohio when they were teenagers.
And that's when he first noticed her because he came
across the scale in like second and his brother, George,
I think it was, said, dude, this chick just kicked
your ass.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And then I love her. She's my God.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yes, it's like me and Andy. But yeah, then they
re met at Ohio State University and the rest of
this kind of history.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So when you were like early teenageys, let's say, when
you had an opinion formed of racing, did you want
to be an IndyCar driver specifically or did you have
any goals in mind?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Back then, I wanted to drive IndyCars.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I didn't really have an interest in stock car racing,
just because I grew up in Ohio and Indiana was
right next door. So if there was going to be
any kind of I want to do this or I
want to do that, it would have been Indy five hundred.
And I had an offer, when you know, teenage years
from down south to come and drive a stock car.
And I was driving these world outlaw sprint cars, which
(08:09):
to me was like more badass in my stock car.
So I was like, Nah, I don't really want to
do that, and my Dad's like are you sure and
said yeah, I just like what we're doing now and
having fun doing that.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So just stuck with that and just kept doing what
I loved.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And then you got an opportunity to drive an IndyCar,
like really young nineteen back then, that was really young, right.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, that's really young. I think I took my IndyCar
test in Vegas when it was flat and that's how
long ago it was. It was before they NASCAR came
in and banked it into this massive super speedway. And
I believe I was still eighteen at the time, so
you know, right out of high school, I skipped flipping burgers,
(08:56):
just went right to IndyCar racing. It's the first job.
So it's a little overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Was it, like, mentally, did you have the right support
network and everything around you, because that's so much responsibility
to take on, because I'm guessing it was a whole
lot of press and pr and like a whole lot
of hohopl a around you as well. Was it easy
to navigate? Did you have a problem switching off and
just getting in the car. Were you mentally tough enough
at that age to do it?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I mean, as an example, my dad had some surgery
the past couple of weeks and he calls me yesterday
and it's like, I didn't tell you because I knew
you were in Indie and I start crying and he's like,
knock it off, and That's just how I grew up,
right with sort of that mentality, just very tough Saturday
night racer type of growth. So when I got to IndyCar,
(09:44):
when I went to my first five hundred and nineteen,
it was just sort of that same you know that
princess stuck it up and deal with it. Here's the
bucket that you have to deal with on the media side,
and then here's the bucket on the racing side. And
I think, looking back, I probably would have elected to
have more coaching around me. I didn't even know that
(10:05):
there was a thing called a driver coach until we
hired Joseph Nugarden. I'm like, right, you have driver coaches,
Like where did I miss that for myself? But I
probably would have had a few more people. There was
some around the you know, more team guided, and you know,
my parents were just like, oh my gosh, sort of
in the same overwhelming situation that I was in, and
(10:27):
they didn't know what the opportunities were even IMG came
down and sat at our little oak wooden table and
Commercial Point, Ohio in our small tiny house and said,
you know, we want to sign Sarah and we'd get
ten percent of her life and my Dad's like, no,
f off, you know, like you can't have that.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So, like looking back some of those things that we
passed up, it could have been a little different, but
I just I wouldn't be where I'm at today. I
probably wouldn't have kids. I just love my family to death,
and I stopped driving so that I could have kids. So,
you know, a lot of those if winds are but
I don't really care about because I am where I
(11:07):
am now and I love it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
You did how many Indy five hundreds in then?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Nine? So nine total? Yep. I wish I would have
done on some more.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
There's still time if I can do it.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
No, no, no, no no, I'm totally out of shape,
and you.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Know I have no year. So I'll be back into
shape and we'll do an all girls.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I'll just bring the car about this, I'll just own
the car and I'm not driving it.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah. Deal.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Okay, so you did ninety five hundreds. Obviously during that
time you met Andy, your husband, And I don't think
that people realize what goes through your head as a
woman when you've got a career like racing, right, Like,
you have to stop if you want to have kids.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You can't.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
They don't make belt extensions and it would be really
dangerous if they did, right.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I've even had conversations with the Indiecar series, you know,
upper echelon folks, about what happens if a female's driving
and she's pregnant, and you know, what should we do
as a series for that. And I'm opinionated about that
too because of having kids. You know, I've stopped driving
before I started trying to have kids because it was
important to me to do it that way in that process,
(12:38):
because I didn't want to have to hang up my
hat after I got pregnant. I wanted to plan a
family and plan a driver to take over the sixty
seven car and have it all sort of work out.
So God bless us with that to work out well,
and we're very lucky to be able to do that
that way.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
But it is it is a mental like battle, isn't
it as okay?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Do I want a career or do I want kids?
Like there is no having both. I know that be
went away and have kids and now it's racing in
stock cars in Brazil, but.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
That's very unusual. Like I think kids, it's.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
One or the other and the guys obviously don't have
that thing. I chose not to because I'm incredibly selfish
and I wanted to continue racing.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You're not. That's the thing though. You're not selfish at
all for choosing that that's your direction and what you
want to do, and I think everybody's different. I've had
this conversation with other female drivers who've made it. It's
just an opinion I have that to have a family,
to have kids, you have to stop driving and to
come back after that, especially if things don't go naturally
(13:46):
and your midsection as a mom is just totally destroyed.
So to come back from that to be a proper
racing driver like you and I know you're supposed to be,
that's just I just don't think it's the same. And
then to be a mom is a lot different than
to be a dad, right, And I'm perfectly fine with that.
(14:07):
That's the choice I made. That's the choice I wanted,
and you know it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
It's also tough, like from a team owner standpoint, because
we all fight so hard for the very few seats
that there are, like getting a drive. As you saw
this year in Indy, there was no cars for me
getting a drive as hard enough as it is, let alone, Like,
you go off and have a family and the teams
are looking at you like, well, she take the risks
that she.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Did before you know, she's gonna be worried about the baby.
So I mean, I commend you for it.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
But speaking of your kids, obviously they've got racing in
their blood. They've got you, they've got your parents, they've
got Andy, they've got his family. Talk about the best
racing jeans ever they but they're really good too, So
tell us about what they've been doing and if that
gives you the same kicks or how it's different watching
them do it as to when you were doing it.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Sure, I mean as an owner, I think that was
my ability to still stay involved in high level racing.
Andy and I made that transition together starting the team
and then having a family and still being able to
I mean, it worked out. It wasn't a big plan
that I just laid out. I just got incredibly lucky
(15:18):
at the right time, and Dollar General, who was my
partner sponsor at the time, believed in that same thought
process with me along with you know, sort of what
we were laying out. So Without them, I wouldn't have
been able to transition into that. And you know, wink
Hartman also to played a huge role in coming in
in twenty twelve and giving us that opportunity after the
(15:40):
last dollar general year. So as far as kids go,
having them grow up in the IndyCar environment, they didn't
have minor hard cards until I came along with my kids, like,
how do we get kids into the infield? Well, you know,
they wouldn't let us in, And I said, well, we
got to have some sort of solution because I'm going
to be there. There's many more coming with kids. You know,
(16:03):
ed is extraordinary because you have the family, But there's
gonna be other drivers in that same situation, so we
need to fix that. I've enjoyed being able to involve
my kids in the racing environment, so they just naturally
took to it. My son more so than my daughter Zoe.
You know, when she hangs out with me at the track,
she always gets that question because she looks a lot
(16:25):
like me, so people think, oh, she looks like you,
she's gonna drive like you. And I think it was
I thought she was driving to it a little bit. Uh,
maybe once a year we'll just go do it for fun.
She's fast. She'll go out and she'll lay a lap
down like the same as her brother, and then say, Okay,
I'm done, I'm bored with it. I'm onto the next thing.
And that's that's fine. You know, you got to do
(16:47):
what you love or you're not you're not going to
be good at it. So it was funny. This weekend
she went with me to the driver's meeting and will
Power comes up to her and says hi, and she's like,
oh my god, you're getting so big, and same kind
of conversation and then he says, sorry, are you still driving?
And she looked at him square in the face and goes,
oh no. He just sat back like I didn't expect that.
(17:08):
But all right, that's fine, I said, no. Our son, Danny,
he's really into the karting and he's really into racing.
And so that's a lot of fun for me to
be able to still be involved after being an owner,
after being at the big level in that regard.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Did you get like cauting dad syndrome where you're like.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Them, you're like telling them and telling what they were.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I am so bad at being the karting mom, I'm terrible.
I'm getting better, though. It's being a mom and watching
your kid on track and not being able to jump
in and drive it for them, or you know, if
someone hits them or hip checks them. I can't get
out there and strangle it myself. So that's that's been
(17:52):
kind of hard. And some of the parents out there,
oh my god, they're ruthless right right. There are some
really wicked parents that I have to stand next to. So,
you know, a shot at tequila here there for the race.
I understand completely why my mom did that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Well, I can hook you up with some tequila because
we are partnered with this NUDA who are organic and
really yummy tequilas there.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Whichhall sounds good.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So when you had Sarah Fisher racing and you decided
to retire, who did you put in the role of
driver to replace you?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
So twenty ten was my last year driving, and then
we had twenty eleven where we had Ed Carpenter in
the car for the one year in the Dollar General car.
My twenty ten year, I sucked at road racing. I'm
not good at it. I'm perfectly fine saying that. And
we had Graham Ray Hall in the car for the
first three road races, and then I did the ovals
(18:48):
and then in talking to Dollar General for that twenty
eleven year, that's when we had Ed in the car
and got our first win at Kentucky with Ed. It's
kind of funny you can go back and google the
announcement of when I retired and put Ed in the car,
and I don't think people saw that coming. And then
Ed's on stage like after I sort of announced it
(19:11):
and that he's going to be taking over, and he
just has this real blank look on his face, like, Okay,
now you.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Know he signed the contract, right, Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I'll remember forever that phone call because I had the
opportunity to hire the best person to fill the seat
and someone who would inherit like my fan base, you know,
on the ovals of all the drivers out there at
Carpenter was the best oval specialists, right, And we only
had budget for ten races, so that was the focus.
(19:41):
So I remember calling him up and saying, Hey, what
are you doing next year and he's like, oh, I'm
just I'm trying to put this money together. And I
think it was for Panther Racing at the time, and
I'm just kind of struggling. And I said, well, you know,
if you're interested, I'm what about driving the sixty seven car?
And he said he's kind of silent. He goes, how
much money do I need to bring? I said none,
(20:03):
I'm hiring you as an oval specialist and you're the
best one out there, So would you come drive for me?
And he says, I got to talk to Heather. I'll
call you right back.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Click.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
I mean less than fifteen minutes later, he calls me back.
He's like, oh my god, it's so exciting. We'd love
to do that. And so it was pretty pretty cool.
I probably won't forget that day for a long time.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, that is really special.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
So I must have missed that because I went after
champ Car, I went back to Europe and I was
doing DTM. So that's the period of time I'm missing
in the middle. And so then how did Joseph come
on the scene.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
So after ed one Kentucky, that was the last year
of that chassis. We were heading into the twenty twelve.
You know, the DW twelve was coming in for the
next year, and Andy and Sarah are out of money.
That is you know, we don't have a sponsored dollar.
General had agreed to give me that one year to
prove the team was good without me behind the wheel,
(21:06):
which we did in full force. And Andy and I
were like, okay, that's that's kind of it. You know,
we're done. Let's call our big partners who've been a
part of this the whole time, so called Drex Supply.
Bob Pilla said, hey, here's what's happening. Is okay, Well,
if there's anything small I can do to help, let
me know. Called obviously DG to tell them what's happening,
(21:27):
same kind of thing, and then Andy called Wink Hartman
and said this is where we're at. And Wink's like, well,
how much are the cars? And Andy's like, excuse me what?
Then he says, how much are the cars? Let's I
think we should keep this going? And Andy's like, uh,
let me call Sarah a click. So it blossomed with
(21:49):
Wink and Libl Hartman coming on as partners to secure
the new cars, the equipment, and then Wing's idea was
to hire a driver for three years, because we had
to talk to him all this time about how one
year wonders never really have the opportunity, right, You get
in and you learn how to sort of drive them,
then you learn to crash them, which he did a
(22:10):
lot of, and then you learn how to race them
and become a winner. And it takes that time period.
So Wink totally got that and brought that up. Hey,
we need to find a rookie. We should sign somebody
for three years. Andy and Iarl like, oh, that's amazing.
You know, we don't. We never had the sort of
budget and sponsorship to be able to stretch it out
that far. So that's when we sort of started doing
(22:33):
the driver hunt, right, and just I remember seeing Joseph
at Baltimore and in the Indie lights car and knowing
that he would have the money from the championship, and
then seeing his interviews and seeing his performance just at
the time was a very genuine driver. He was very
genuine in his answers. He was always smiling, very happy,
(22:57):
just sort of like a sponsor Jenik photogenic kind of kid.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Right, Team America he was such a kid.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, Team America was and you know, Weink fell in
love with him. Wink was just excited as could be.
So we went to the Vegas race at the end
of twenty eleven, and Andy had reached out to Rick
Gordon and said, hey, you know, is there any chance
we could meet with Joseph out there? So that's when
(23:24):
we met.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Did Rick manage Joseph back then? Then?
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Huh yeah, okay? And met with them. It was just
us three and Joseph in the room in Vegas and
we left the room and we're like, yes, that that
is who we want for sure. And Wink was just
I mean, he couldn't be happier. He was so excited.
So it was a three year commitment that Wink threw
in there, Wink and Live and we wouldn't have been
(23:48):
able to do that without them, So that was the
start of it.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
That's amazing because I mean, you made the guy's career basically.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
It's an interesting story.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
There was a lot of times that Wink really wanted
to fire him.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Because I guess we could say that for all of us.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, right, I've had owners want to fire me too.
It's fine, it's part of it. And you know, he,
like I said, you have that three year commitment where
the first year you sort of learn about the car,
you learn how to sort of drive them. The second
year you crash everything, and he crashed so much we
had to hire a carbon guy just to keep building
(24:25):
wings Like I have so many fair crashed up, waded
up bodywork in my outbuilding of his. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
So like, so came to sign it, sell it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
No, he doesn't call me back, So I don't think
that's possible. I can forge it maybe, but that'd be
about it.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
All right, So far forward to you deciding to close
the doors on Sarah Fisher Racing and opening a go
cott track, which is really cool, Like you've had so
many different lives.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I like mcgiver. I guess I don't think that jack
of all trades.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I what brought the gokart track on It.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Was Andy really originally was his idea. He's very smart.
Before we built the shop there on Main Street, the
SFHR the main facility on Main Street in Speedway, well
Wink we built it for Wink. It was a Winks building.
Andy wanted to have a go kart track sort of
integrated in the race shop so that we would have
(25:39):
visitors and customers be able to see inside of a
race team, be able to overlook bays and sort of
become this inner workings fan experience opportunity.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
That's such a cool idea. Yeah it was.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It was neat, but I looking back at all the
troubles and things that we had to go through as
a small business, it would have been really tough to
pull that off. So I'm kind of glad that it
wound up the way it did. Winke didn't want to
do that. He wanted just the footprint of the race
shop and focused on the racing side, and so that's
what we did. And then when we had heard wind
(26:14):
that Tony Stewart was going to build a Bass Pro
shops on Crawfordsville Road and he was going to put
a go kart track inside of it, we were like, whoa, whoa,
whoa time out Speedway's our town, Like you go back
to Columbus with your guys. Oh shop, So we're putting
the cart track in. So that's what just kicked us
into gear to get started to do it. And cool
(26:36):
sold everything like sold our house, sold the motor homes,
sold every toy boats, everything We had to build that building.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Do you still iron it?
Speaker 3 (26:45):
No? No, actually we yeah. We sold the building to
Turner Woodard. He had some ten thirty one money from
the Stets Building downtown Indianapolis, and he really wanted to
be in speedway fair enough, it made sense for us
to do that, and we held onto the operations of
the go kart business for two more years after the
(27:09):
sale of the building, and then it was kind of
time for Andy and I to move on to other
entrepreneurial things, so we sold it to his little brother,
Kyle Ogara, his wife and his partner, Rocky Paccuni. Rocky's
been racing with us since he was eight years old,
so like we've it's still in the family, I guess.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, speaking of still in the family, do you still
stay in touch with the Wink and Live.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Oh my gosh, yes all the time. They came to
Saint Pete with us. We just visited Wink. He had
his seventy fifth birthday this year, so we went down
and visited them in February. I believe it was so Yeah.
Andy talks to Wink weekly. They're always always on the phone.
It's really really pretty cool to have that friendship.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
And he still loves racing very much.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
So he's still involved. We have a development team with
the USF two thousand cars. He's involved in that program,
and he's involved in our son's racing program as well.
So he just he loves it. He's a racer. Now,
what can I say, Once you get involved in it,
it's really hard to stop loving it.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, that's true. So when did you start the USF
two thousand?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, it started probably twenty seventeen. I can't remember exact year.
But we had met Elliott Cox, who drove for us
in the beginning. We had met Elliott at Whiteland Raceway Park,
which was the go kart track that we ultimately bought
and ran for a while. And Elliott's family they're actually
(28:42):
neighbors of ours. They live about two miles from our house,
and once they got to know us at the go
kart track, they said, Hey, could you and Andy come to dinner?
We want to ask your opinion how to move Elliott
up the ladder and what steps we need to take.
So we went over to their house, they made us dinner,
and it's just really they're just family people, and they
(29:05):
had a little bit of sponsorship at the time. And
Andy and I left their house and we didn't even
have to tell each other what we were thinking because
we thought the same thing. That we didn't really want
to pass this family off to another race team because
you bring a team a couple hundred grand and it's gone,
and you're gone, and it's six months later, you know.
So we just didn't we didn't want to do that
(29:26):
to them because the entry level was so much more
affordable at the time with like the F four cars
and that. So we came back to them and Andy
called Wink and said, look, here's what's happening, and Wink said,
that sounds kind of fun. Let's go. Let's go play
in that world for a little while. So Wink bought
the first car, and with their little bit of money,
(29:48):
we got started and ran Elliott at some tests in
the Academy Series in Florida and just sort of took
it from there and that's what got us started. Yeah,
not as much. He's eighteen years old now, so he's
like another child. His main sponsor last year went away,
(30:12):
so he's sort of in a regeneration.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Year and been there.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, I feel like I'm in one every year. And
this year we had an opportunity. There was a kid
from South Africa who wanted to come try the United
States racing over here to see what that was like.
It's really difficult, I guess overseas to find you know,
seats that are worthy and affordable. Even so we decided
(30:39):
to take that opportunity and put him in a car.
So that's been our challenge this year on the development side.
And then we still have the sprint car team that
Andy's little brother Kyle drives for us. It's fun to
do that because it's a very much grassroots sport that
we came from with the sprint cars and the short
track pavement. So that's a lot of fun. Fun to
(31:00):
be a part of that grassroots, you know side and
watch Kyle racing and he finished second at the Little
five hundred this year, so we just we really enjoy it.
We put a lot of emphasis in it, and it's
more of the fun, fun stuff, not as much pressure.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Do you like the driver coaching aspect of it, like
when you work with Elliott and when you worked with
Doseph and when you worked with all the other drivers.
Do you like being on this side of the pitwall
and helping them and doing strategy and like doing that
side of it or is there part of you that's
just like itching just to get in and do it
for them.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
A little bit of both a little bit of both. Honestly,
I think the coaching side, I like, I would rather
work with the younger kids, like the fifteen year old type.
They listen more.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
They're more going to say they listen. Yeah, they're just
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
The older they get, the more hard headed they are
and it becomes a challenge. But it's educating me for
when my son comes along, So I appreciate that opportunity.
And as far as strategy goes, Andy is he is
totally the strategist on the radio and talking to the kids.
And I helped Simon Sikes this year and helped Elliott
(32:15):
on the Oval and that was fun. But I enjoy
more of the sideline part, I guess instead.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
So, apart from driving the pace car and things like that,
what is next for you? Like, where do you see
the next five years kind of transitioning over?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
What's your dream scenario?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
I don't know, other than retiring to Hawaii, which I
couldn't do anyways, because there's hardly any racing.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
What we're doing Indy next year apparently, Yeah, we're doing
Indian Are you going to be the team owner?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
I mean, I don't know. I don't think Andy and
I ever take that off the table, you know, starting
as the FHR back up. We talk about it all
the time. And every year that Andy goes and helps
another team with strategies and talking on the radio, he
comes home and he's so frustrated because he's like, oh
my god, some of the basics we would totally nail this,
(33:09):
and you know we would, we would be running so well.
And you know, so I guess every year it's the
conversation that him and I have to get back in it.
But it's also so much financial risk, right, and I
think what would be really awesome is to have the
ringer driver and to have a driver that is more
(33:32):
of a paid for seat driver, and then merge those
two and get back in it somehow. So I don't know.
I mean, I enjoy karting with our son. He's in
that transition of going from karting to cars. So we're
figuring that out at the moment and trying to plan
for him long term and how would that work in it?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Right? When is he going to be an indycod driver?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah? How long is that going to? How much money
do I have to raise for that, you know, so
just the planning stages of that will probably take over
the next five years and maybe if there's an opportunity
to be at the IndyCar level again, twenty twenty seven
is exciting because it's the new car, so there's an
(34:16):
open opportunity for a lot of people. But I think
the engine manufacturer side has to accommodate that as well,
because neither engine manufacturers really capable. They're so focused on
R and D and development that it makes it tough
to provide you know, more and more cars. Yeah, the
economy of scale. So I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Or a third manufacturer coming in.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I mean that would be nice, That would fix a
lot of.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Things, that would help, Yeah, because then it would take
the onus off of one hundred and Chevy and like
help them out here.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
So I don't know. That's a well above my pay
grade me too.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I can suggest it all I want, but I'm not
a part of the conversation, so it's kind of hard
to say. This is you know what, it's like a
schedule change, right, If you've operated a series and had
to go through the process of scheduling things and races
and people, then when you look at the Big series
and you see they're going through that same process, it
(35:16):
makes it hard to make comments like why are they
going here? What are they doing there? Because there's so
much more behind the scenes that we don't know about.
But I feel like either three manufacturers or just one.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Oh yeah, you know, that's actually a good idea.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I never thought about that. Why did I never consider
the one manufacturer? Because then they could do all the
cars and the R and D wouldn't actually have to.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Be wouldn't be expensive, right right, Then you would have
more affordability, they would be working on longevity issues instead of,
you know, trying to keep going faster and faster, and
then the development side would be more on the team side.
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
And speaking of floating it, so you've seen IMS and
IndyCar go through all of the iterations from the nineties
all the way through which is from the Tony George days,
and then seeing Roger by it and have all the
different people running it. Do you like where it's at now?
Do you think that it's heading in the direction that
you would have taken it in? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Yeah, I want to go back to Richmond. I want
to go back to Nazareth. I don't want to go
back to Colorado all those short track places because I
think that truly brings in the driver to an oval
racing scenario. But hey, whatever is behind the scenes for that.
They were talking about Richmond a couple of years ago,
and I'm like, oh my god, yes, finally, but whatever,
(36:39):
I think that where it's headed from here on the
tech side. I just hope we survive the next two
years of that critical turn. I guess I can't remember
the last time that they that they penalized someone at
the five hundred post race.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Well, I will like you get back to your mowing.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
It was a pleasure speaking to you, and I will
talk to you about Indy later.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yes, we'll have to do. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Thanks for listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next
week with more updates and more overtakes. We want to
hear from you. Leave us a review in Apple Podcasts
and tell us what you want to talk about. It
might just be the topic for our next show. Throttle
Therapy is hosted by Katherine Legg. Our executive producer is
Jesse Katz, and our supervising producer is Grace Fuse. Listen
(37:38):
to Throttle Therapy on America's number one podcast network, iHeart,
open your free iHeart app and search throttle Therapy with
Catherine Legg and start listening
Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to this week's episode
(00:21):
of Throttle Therapy with Me Catherinelegg, and this week, I
am excited to introduce you to one of the people
who was close to me in age that I could
look up to when I first came over here. I
heard about her a little bit when I was racing
in England, but when I came over here, she was
really the gold standard and I wanted to be her
(00:45):
when I grew up. And as it turns out, we
are now friends and she's definitely helped and mentored and
been a really strong female role model in my life.
I don't I actually remember how Sarah and I met.
I just remember being fast friends with her. I think
we have the same outlook and attitude about racing, how
(01:10):
to go about being a woman in racing, And I
remember actually being disappointed that she retired and had kids
and are so selfish of me because it's something that
she really wanted to do and she's a great, terrific mum,
but I wanted her to race forever, and she came
(01:31):
at it from a very different angle than I did.
Her speciality was oval racing, and she came at it
from a very American oval racing background and I came
at it from a very European road racing background. And
somehow we could relate to each other, and I think
that's really cool. We've had generationally, starting with Janet Guthrie,
(01:54):
who we've had on the show, then Lint and James
also on the show, and then Sarah Fish, and then
there was obviously the influx of Me and Danika and
Simona and Beer and everybody that came kind of after that.
But she was, in my opinion, one of the really strong,
(02:15):
mentally capable, badass drivers that I could use this as
an example, and I'm proud to have her as a friend.
Sarah Fisher, Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of
Throttle Therapy with Me Catherine Legg And this week, I
am super excited, actually to have a friend of mine
(02:39):
on the show, and a friend of mine that has
is probably one of only a handful of people that
have walked the same life that I have. She was
one of the first people I was aware of when
I was a young up and coming driver and I
came to the States and I wanted to be her,
and so welcome, Sarah Fisher.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
How are you.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I'm doing good, Catherine. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
I know that it was a number of years in
the middle there where we weren't really connected. But when
I first came over to the USA, you were in
India at the time, you were like the mecha of
all girl drivers, because you know, you've had Janet gaserin,
you've had Vincent James, and they had been before us,
so you hear the the legend of them, if you like.
(03:26):
But you were actually out there doing it for fighting
and being a badass, and so when I grew up,
I wanted to be Sarah Fisher. You were also you
were somebody I definitely looked up to in a lot
of ways because you were doing it the way I
wanted to do it, which was kind of head down,
like get taken seriously as a race car driver, no bullshit,
(03:48):
you were no bullshit.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
That's been well, that's why that's a lot of why
I'm here. We've been friends for a long time and
in talking to all the various you know, people who
constantly ask me questions of you know, what girl racers
are out there, and you know what my opinions are,
And I've always been such an advocate for the bottom
line matters most So it doesn't really matter what you
(04:13):
look like, who you are, if you're a girl, if
you're a boy, or whatever it is. If you can
perform and you know you're out there, you know, not
just taking up space, but you're actually competing and doing
a good job, then you do deserve an opportunity. But
you shouldn't have an opportunity just because of being a
certain gender or looking some certain way. I've always been
(04:35):
very opinionated about that, and I think you're one of
those people in that category. So when I talk to
people about you know, you know, those who deserve an
opportunity because they're good and they are racing drivers, and
then there's those in the category that you know are
there because of other reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So the influences who race on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah, you're in my category. It's all I'm saying each
other's people.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I want to start off by going way way back.
I know because we're the same age go to the stop.
You had a different start to racing than I did
in some ways because I will let you go into it.
But you did a lot of really cool dirt stuff,
and like, why don't you tell the audience how you
came up through from when you were just a wee
(05:22):
lass back in the day.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, it was quite a bit different. I honestly don't
think I would be an Indy car if it wasn't
for the timing of Tony George and really having the
emphasis on those short track, pavement and dirt racers. Spent
most of my time on dirt. No, I don't think
many people realize that, but I I was just nineteen
(05:45):
my first Indy five hundred, So I spent one year
in pavement midgets, the USACK midgets. But that's where like
Tony Stewart came from, and Jason Leffler and those shining
star short track oval racers that Tony George was pushing
towards the indie car owners to explore.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So how old were you when you started racing?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
In general? I was just four and a half.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I think four and a half. Okay, I didn't know
that that's crazy. That explains a lot with your kids,
and we will get to that part in a bit.
But four and a half, Okay, I was nine, so
that's quite a bit different. So you literally have it
in your bones like you grew up with it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, My whole family was inter racing, and my uncle
Charlie still builds engines for a lot of the for
some world outlaw guys. My late uncle George was Dale
Blaney's crew chief for almost twenty years. Dale is Ryan
Blaney's uncle. That's what most people. Yeah, Dave Blaney's brother,
(06:46):
Ryan's uncle, So that was uncle George. My dad was
primarily stopped his racing sprint cards to focus on me,
which I wouldn't be here without that. And then even
my mom and dad met racing go karts when they
were fourteen fifteen years old.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
So did you.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
She did?
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, she raced. She beat my dad in a little
street race in Commercial Point, Ohio when they were teenagers.
And that's when he first noticed her because he came
across the scale in like second and his brother, George,
I think it was, said, dude, this chick just kicked
your ass.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And then I love her. She's my God.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yes, it's like me and Andy. But yeah, then they
re met at Ohio State University and the rest of
this kind of history.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So when you were like early teenageys, let's say, when
you had an opinion formed of racing, did you want
to be an IndyCar driver specifically or did you have
any goals in mind?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Back then, I wanted to drive IndyCars.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I didn't really have an interest in stock car racing,
just because I grew up in Ohio and Indiana was
right next door. So if there was going to be
any kind of I want to do this or I
want to do that, it would have been Indy five hundred.
And I had an offer, when you know, teenage years
from down south to come and drive a stock car.
And I was driving these world outlaw sprint cars, which
(08:09):
to me was like more badass in my stock car.
So I was like, Nah, I don't really want to
do that, and my Dad's like are you sure and
said yeah, I just like what we're doing now and
having fun doing that.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So just stuck with that and just kept doing what
I loved.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And then you got an opportunity to drive an IndyCar,
like really young nineteen back then, that was really young, right.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, that's really young. I think I took my IndyCar
test in Vegas when it was flat and that's how
long ago it was. It was before they NASCAR came
in and banked it into this massive super speedway. And
I believe I was still eighteen at the time, so
you know, right out of high school, I skipped flipping burgers,
(08:56):
just went right to IndyCar racing. It's the first job.
So it's a little overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Was it, like, mentally, did you have the right support
network and everything around you, because that's so much responsibility
to take on, because I'm guessing it was a whole
lot of press and pr and like a whole lot
of hohopl a around you as well. Was it easy
to navigate? Did you have a problem switching off and
just getting in the car. Were you mentally tough enough
at that age to do it?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I mean, as an example, my dad had some surgery
the past couple of weeks and he calls me yesterday
and it's like, I didn't tell you because I knew
you were in Indie and I start crying and he's like,
knock it off, and That's just how I grew up,
right with sort of that mentality, just very tough Saturday
night racer type of growth. So when I got to IndyCar,
(09:44):
when I went to my first five hundred and nineteen,
it was just sort of that same you know that
princess stuck it up and deal with it. Here's the
bucket that you have to deal with on the media side,
and then here's the bucket on the racing side. And
I think, looking back, I probably would have elected to
have more coaching around me. I didn't even know that
(10:05):
there was a thing called a driver coach until we
hired Joseph Nugarden. I'm like, right, you have driver coaches,
Like where did I miss that for myself? But I
probably would have had a few more people. There was
some around the you know, more team guided, and you know,
my parents were just like, oh my gosh, sort of
in the same overwhelming situation that I was in, and
(10:27):
they didn't know what the opportunities were even IMG came
down and sat at our little oak wooden table and
Commercial Point, Ohio in our small tiny house and said,
you know, we want to sign Sarah and we'd get
ten percent of her life and my Dad's like, no,
f off, you know, like you can't have that.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So, like looking back some of those things that we
passed up, it could have been a little different, but
I just I wouldn't be where I'm at today. I
probably wouldn't have kids. I just love my family to death,
and I stopped driving so that I could have kids. So,
you know, a lot of those if winds are but
I don't really care about because I am where I
(11:07):
am now and I love it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
You did how many Indy five hundreds in then?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Nine? So nine total? Yep. I wish I would have
done on some more.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
There's still time if I can do it.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
No, no, no, no no, I'm totally out of shape,
and you.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Know I have no year. So I'll be back into
shape and we'll do an all girls.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I'll just bring the car about this, I'll just own
the car and I'm not driving it.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah. Deal.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Okay, so you did ninety five hundreds. Obviously during that
time you met Andy, your husband, And I don't think
that people realize what goes through your head as a
woman when you've got a career like racing, right, Like,
you have to stop if you want to have kids.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You can't.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
They don't make belt extensions and it would be really
dangerous if they did, right.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I've even had conversations with the Indiecar series, you know,
upper echelon folks, about what happens if a female's driving
and she's pregnant, and you know, what should we do
as a series for that. And I'm opinionated about that
too because of having kids. You know, I've stopped driving
before I started trying to have kids because it was
important to me to do it that way in that process,
(12:38):
because I didn't want to have to hang up my
hat after I got pregnant. I wanted to plan a
family and plan a driver to take over the sixty
seven car and have it all sort of work out.
So God bless us with that to work out well,
and we're very lucky to be able to do that
that way.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
But it is it is a mental like battle, isn't
it as okay?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Do I want a career or do I want kids?
Like there is no having both. I know that be
went away and have kids and now it's racing in
stock cars in Brazil, but.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
That's very unusual. Like I think kids, it's.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
One or the other and the guys obviously don't have
that thing. I chose not to because I'm incredibly selfish
and I wanted to continue racing.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You're not. That's the thing though. You're not selfish at
all for choosing that that's your direction and what you
want to do, and I think everybody's different. I've had
this conversation with other female drivers who've made it. It's
just an opinion I have that to have a family,
to have kids, you have to stop driving and to
come back after that, especially if things don't go naturally
(13:46):
and your midsection as a mom is just totally destroyed.
So to come back from that to be a proper
racing driver like you and I know you're supposed to be,
that's just I just don't think it's the same. And
then to be a mom is a lot different than
to be a dad, right, And I'm perfectly fine with that.
(14:07):
That's the choice I made. That's the choice I wanted,
and you know it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
It's also tough, like from a team owner standpoint, because
we all fight so hard for the very few seats
that there are, like getting a drive. As you saw
this year in Indy, there was no cars for me
getting a drive as hard enough as it is, let alone, Like,
you go off and have a family and the teams
are looking at you like, well, she take the risks
that she.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Did before you know, she's gonna be worried about the baby.
So I mean, I commend you for it.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
But speaking of your kids, obviously they've got racing in
their blood. They've got you, they've got your parents, they've
got Andy, they've got his family. Talk about the best
racing jeans ever they but they're really good too, So
tell us about what they've been doing and if that
gives you the same kicks or how it's different watching
them do it as to when you were doing it.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Sure, I mean as an owner, I think that was
my ability to still stay involved in high level racing.
Andy and I made that transition together starting the team
and then having a family and still being able to
I mean, it worked out. It wasn't a big plan
that I just laid out. I just got incredibly lucky
(15:18):
at the right time, and Dollar General, who was my
partner sponsor at the time, believed in that same thought
process with me along with you know, sort of what
we were laying out. So Without them, I wouldn't have
been able to transition into that. And you know, wink
Hartman also to played a huge role in coming in
in twenty twelve and giving us that opportunity after the
(15:40):
last dollar general year. So as far as kids go,
having them grow up in the IndyCar environment, they didn't
have minor hard cards until I came along with my kids, like,
how do we get kids into the infield? Well, you know,
they wouldn't let us in, And I said, well, we
got to have some sort of solution because I'm going
to be there. There's many more coming with kids. You know,
(16:03):
ed is extraordinary because you have the family, But there's
gonna be other drivers in that same situation, so we
need to fix that. I've enjoyed being able to involve
my kids in the racing environment, so they just naturally
took to it. My son more so than my daughter Zoe.
You know, when she hangs out with me at the track,
she always gets that question because she looks a lot
(16:25):
like me, so people think, oh, she looks like you,
she's gonna drive like you. And I think it was
I thought she was driving to it a little bit. Uh,
maybe once a year we'll just go do it for fun.
She's fast. She'll go out and she'll lay a lap
down like the same as her brother, and then say, Okay,
I'm done, I'm bored with it. I'm onto the next thing.
And that's that's fine. You know, you got to do
(16:47):
what you love or you're not you're not going to
be good at it. So it was funny. This weekend
she went with me to the driver's meeting and will
Power comes up to her and says hi, and she's like,
oh my god, you're getting so big, and same kind
of conversation and then he says, sorry, are you still driving?
And she looked at him square in the face and goes,
oh no. He just sat back like I didn't expect that.
(17:08):
But all right, that's fine, I said, no. Our son, Danny,
he's really into the karting and he's really into racing.
And so that's a lot of fun for me to
be able to still be involved after being an owner,
after being at the big level in that regard.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Did you get like cauting dad syndrome where you're like.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Them, you're like telling them and telling what they were.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I am so bad at being the karting mom, I'm terrible.
I'm getting better, though. It's being a mom and watching
your kid on track and not being able to jump
in and drive it for them, or you know, if
someone hits them or hip checks them. I can't get
out there and strangle it myself. So that's that's been
(17:52):
kind of hard. And some of the parents out there,
oh my god, they're ruthless right right. There are some
really wicked parents that I have to stand next to. So,
you know, a shot at tequila here there for the race.
I understand completely why my mom did that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Well, I can hook you up with some tequila because
we are partnered with this NUDA who are organic and
really yummy tequilas there.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Whichhall sounds good.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So when you had Sarah Fisher racing and you decided
to retire, who did you put in the role of
driver to replace you?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
So twenty ten was my last year driving, and then
we had twenty eleven where we had Ed Carpenter in
the car for the one year in the Dollar General car.
My twenty ten year, I sucked at road racing. I'm
not good at it. I'm perfectly fine saying that. And
we had Graham Ray Hall in the car for the
first three road races, and then I did the ovals
(18:48):
and then in talking to Dollar General for that twenty
eleven year, that's when we had Ed in the car
and got our first win at Kentucky with Ed. It's
kind of funny you can go back and google the
announcement of when I retired and put Ed in the car,
and I don't think people saw that coming. And then
Ed's on stage like after I sort of announced it
(19:11):
and that he's going to be taking over, and he
just has this real blank look on his face, like, Okay,
now you.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Know he signed the contract, right, Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I'll remember forever that phone call because I had the
opportunity to hire the best person to fill the seat
and someone who would inherit like my fan base, you know,
on the ovals of all the drivers out there at
Carpenter was the best oval specialists, right, And we only
had budget for ten races, so that was the focus.
(19:41):
So I remember calling him up and saying, Hey, what
are you doing next year and he's like, oh, I'm
just I'm trying to put this money together. And I
think it was for Panther Racing at the time, and
I'm just kind of struggling. And I said, well, you know,
if you're interested, I'm what about driving the sixty seven car?
And he said he's kind of silent. He goes, how
much money do I need to bring? I said none,
(20:03):
I'm hiring you as an oval specialist and you're the
best one out there, So would you come drive for me?
And he says, I got to talk to Heather. I'll
call you right back.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Click.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
I mean less than fifteen minutes later, he calls me back.
He's like, oh my god, it's so exciting. We'd love
to do that. And so it was pretty pretty cool.
I probably won't forget that day for a long time.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, that is really special.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
So I must have missed that because I went after
champ Car, I went back to Europe and I was
doing DTM. So that's the period of time I'm missing
in the middle. And so then how did Joseph come
on the scene.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
So after ed one Kentucky, that was the last year
of that chassis. We were heading into the twenty twelve.
You know, the DW twelve was coming in for the
next year, and Andy and Sarah are out of money.
That is you know, we don't have a sponsored dollar.
General had agreed to give me that one year to
prove the team was good without me behind the wheel,
(21:06):
which we did in full force. And Andy and I
were like, okay, that's that's kind of it. You know,
we're done. Let's call our big partners who've been a
part of this the whole time, so called Drex Supply.
Bob Pilla said, hey, here's what's happening. Is okay, Well,
if there's anything small I can do to help, let
me know. Called obviously DG to tell them what's happening,
(21:27):
same kind of thing, and then Andy called Wink Hartman
and said this is where we're at. And Wink's like, well,
how much are the cars? And Andy's like, excuse me what?
Then he says, how much are the cars? Let's I
think we should keep this going? And Andy's like, uh,
let me call Sarah a click. So it blossomed with
(21:49):
Wink and Libl Hartman coming on as partners to secure
the new cars, the equipment, and then Wing's idea was
to hire a driver for three years, because we had
to talk to him all this time about how one
year wonders never really have the opportunity, right, You get
in and you learn how to sort of drive them,
then you learn to crash them, which he did a
(22:10):
lot of, and then you learn how to race them
and become a winner. And it takes that time period.
So Wink totally got that and brought that up. Hey,
we need to find a rookie. We should sign somebody
for three years. Andy and Iarl like, oh, that's amazing.
You know, we don't. We never had the sort of
budget and sponsorship to be able to stretch it out
that far. So that's when we sort of started doing
(22:33):
the driver hunt, right, and just I remember seeing Joseph
at Baltimore and in the Indie lights car and knowing
that he would have the money from the championship, and
then seeing his interviews and seeing his performance just at
the time was a very genuine driver. He was very
genuine in his answers. He was always smiling, very happy,
(22:57):
just sort of like a sponsor Jenik photogenic kind of kid.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Right, Team America he was such a kid.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, Team America was and you know, Weink fell in
love with him. Wink was just excited as could be.
So we went to the Vegas race at the end
of twenty eleven, and Andy had reached out to Rick
Gordon and said, hey, you know, is there any chance
we could meet with Joseph out there? So that's when
(23:24):
we met.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Did Rick manage Joseph back then? Then?
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Huh yeah, okay? And met with them. It was just
us three and Joseph in the room in Vegas and
we left the room and we're like, yes, that that
is who we want for sure. And Wink was just
I mean, he couldn't be happier. He was so excited.
So it was a three year commitment that Wink threw
in there, Wink and Live and we wouldn't have been
(23:48):
able to do that without them, So that was the
start of it.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
That's amazing because I mean, you made the guy's career basically.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
It's an interesting story.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
There was a lot of times that Wink really wanted
to fire him.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Because I guess we could say that for all of us.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, right, I've had owners want to fire me too.
It's fine, it's part of it. And you know, he,
like I said, you have that three year commitment where
the first year you sort of learn about the car,
you learn how to sort of drive them. The second
year you crash everything, and he crashed so much we
had to hire a carbon guy just to keep building
(24:25):
wings Like I have so many fair crashed up, waded
up bodywork in my outbuilding of his. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
So like, so came to sign it, sell it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
No, he doesn't call me back, So I don't think
that's possible. I can forge it maybe, but that'd be
about it.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
All right, So far forward to you deciding to close
the doors on Sarah Fisher Racing and opening a go
cott track, which is really cool, Like you've had so
many different lives.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I like mcgiver. I guess I don't think that jack
of all trades.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I what brought the gokart track on It.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Was Andy really originally was his idea. He's very smart.
Before we built the shop there on Main Street, the
SFHR the main facility on Main Street in Speedway, well
Wink we built it for Wink. It was a Winks building.
Andy wanted to have a go kart track sort of
integrated in the race shop so that we would have
(25:39):
visitors and customers be able to see inside of a
race team, be able to overlook bays and sort of
become this inner workings fan experience opportunity.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
That's such a cool idea. Yeah it was.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It was neat, but I looking back at all the
troubles and things that we had to go through as
a small business, it would have been really tough to
pull that off. So I'm kind of glad that it
wound up the way it did. Winke didn't want to
do that. He wanted just the footprint of the race
shop and focused on the racing side, and so that's
what we did. And then when we had heard wind
(26:14):
that Tony Stewart was going to build a Bass Pro
shops on Crawfordsville Road and he was going to put
a go kart track inside of it, we were like, whoa, whoa,
whoa time out Speedway's our town, Like you go back
to Columbus with your guys. Oh shop, So we're putting
the cart track in. So that's what just kicked us
into gear to get started to do it. And cool
(26:36):
sold everything like sold our house, sold the motor homes,
sold every toy boats, everything We had to build that building.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Do you still iron it?
Speaker 3 (26:45):
No? No, actually we yeah. We sold the building to
Turner Woodard. He had some ten thirty one money from
the Stets Building downtown Indianapolis, and he really wanted to
be in speedway fair enough, it made sense for us
to do that, and we held onto the operations of
the go kart business for two more years after the
(27:09):
sale of the building, and then it was kind of
time for Andy and I to move on to other
entrepreneurial things, so we sold it to his little brother,
Kyle Ogara, his wife and his partner, Rocky Paccuni. Rocky's
been racing with us since he was eight years old,
so like we've it's still in the family, I guess.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, speaking of still in the family, do you still
stay in touch with the Wink and Live.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Oh my gosh, yes all the time. They came to
Saint Pete with us. We just visited Wink. He had
his seventy fifth birthday this year, so we went down
and visited them in February. I believe it was so Yeah.
Andy talks to Wink weekly. They're always always on the phone.
It's really really pretty cool to have that friendship.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
And he still loves racing very much.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
So he's still involved. We have a development team with
the USF two thousand cars. He's involved in that program,
and he's involved in our son's racing program as well.
So he just he loves it. He's a racer. Now,
what can I say, Once you get involved in it,
it's really hard to stop loving it.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, that's true. So when did you start the USF
two thousand?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, it started probably twenty seventeen. I can't remember exact year.
But we had met Elliott Cox, who drove for us
in the beginning. We had met Elliott at Whiteland Raceway Park,
which was the go kart track that we ultimately bought
and ran for a while. And Elliott's family they're actually
(28:42):
neighbors of ours. They live about two miles from our house,
and once they got to know us at the go
kart track, they said, Hey, could you and Andy come to dinner?
We want to ask your opinion how to move Elliott
up the ladder and what steps we need to take.
So we went over to their house, they made us dinner,
and it's just really they're just family people, and they
(29:05):
had a little bit of sponsorship at the time. And
Andy and I left their house and we didn't even
have to tell each other what we were thinking because
we thought the same thing. That we didn't really want
to pass this family off to another race team because
you bring a team a couple hundred grand and it's gone,
and you're gone, and it's six months later, you know.
So we just didn't we didn't want to do that
(29:26):
to them because the entry level was so much more
affordable at the time with like the F four cars
and that. So we came back to them and Andy
called Wink and said, look, here's what's happening, and Wink said,
that sounds kind of fun. Let's go. Let's go play
in that world for a little while. So Wink bought
the first car, and with their little bit of money,
(29:48):
we got started and ran Elliott at some tests in
the Academy Series in Florida and just sort of took
it from there and that's what got us started. Yeah,
not as much. He's eighteen years old now, so he's
like another child. His main sponsor last year went away,
(30:12):
so he's sort of in a regeneration.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Year and been there.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, I feel like I'm in one every year. And
this year we had an opportunity. There was a kid
from South Africa who wanted to come try the United
States racing over here to see what that was like.
It's really difficult, I guess overseas to find you know,
seats that are worthy and affordable. Even so we decided
(30:39):
to take that opportunity and put him in a car.
So that's been our challenge this year on the development side.
And then we still have the sprint car team that
Andy's little brother Kyle drives for us. It's fun to
do that because it's a very much grassroots sport that
we came from with the sprint cars and the short
track pavement. So that's a lot of fun. Fun to
(31:00):
be a part of that grassroots, you know side and
watch Kyle racing and he finished second at the Little
five hundred this year, so we just we really enjoy it.
We put a lot of emphasis in it, and it's
more of the fun, fun stuff, not as much pressure.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Do you like the driver coaching aspect of it, like
when you work with Elliott and when you worked with
Doseph and when you worked with all the other drivers.
Do you like being on this side of the pitwall
and helping them and doing strategy and like doing that
side of it or is there part of you that's
just like itching just to get in and do it
for them.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
A little bit of both a little bit of both. Honestly,
I think the coaching side, I like, I would rather
work with the younger kids, like the fifteen year old type.
They listen more.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
They're more going to say they listen. Yeah, they're just
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
The older they get, the more hard headed they are
and it becomes a challenge. But it's educating me for
when my son comes along, So I appreciate that opportunity.
And as far as strategy goes, Andy is he is
totally the strategist on the radio and talking to the kids.
And I helped Simon Sikes this year and helped Elliott
(32:15):
on the Oval and that was fun. But I enjoy
more of the sideline part, I guess instead.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
So, apart from driving the pace car and things like that,
what is next for you? Like, where do you see
the next five years kind of transitioning over?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
What's your dream scenario?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
I don't know, other than retiring to Hawaii, which I
couldn't do anyways, because there's hardly any racing.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
What we're doing Indy next year apparently, Yeah, we're doing
Indian Are you going to be the team owner?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
I mean, I don't know. I don't think Andy and
I ever take that off the table, you know, starting
as the FHR back up. We talk about it all
the time. And every year that Andy goes and helps
another team with strategies and talking on the radio, he
comes home and he's so frustrated because he's like, oh
my god, some of the basics we would totally nail this,
(33:09):
and you know we would, we would be running so well.
And you know, so I guess every year it's the
conversation that him and I have to get back in it.
But it's also so much financial risk, right, and I
think what would be really awesome is to have the
ringer driver and to have a driver that is more
(33:32):
of a paid for seat driver, and then merge those
two and get back in it somehow. So I don't know.
I mean, I enjoy karting with our son. He's in
that transition of going from karting to cars. So we're
figuring that out at the moment and trying to plan
for him long term and how would that work in it?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Right? When is he going to be an indycod driver?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah? How long is that going to? How much money
do I have to raise for that, you know, so
just the planning stages of that will probably take over
the next five years and maybe if there's an opportunity
to be at the IndyCar level again, twenty twenty seven
is exciting because it's the new car, so there's an
(34:16):
open opportunity for a lot of people. But I think
the engine manufacturer side has to accommodate that as well,
because neither engine manufacturers really capable. They're so focused on
R and D and development that it makes it tough
to provide you know, more and more cars. Yeah, the
economy of scale. So I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Or a third manufacturer coming in.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I mean that would be nice, That would fix a
lot of.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Things, that would help, Yeah, because then it would take
the onus off of one hundred and Chevy and like
help them out here.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
So I don't know. That's a well above my pay
grade me too.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I can suggest it all I want, but I'm not
a part of the conversation, so it's kind of hard
to say. This is you know what, it's like a
schedule change, right, If you've operated a series and had
to go through the process of scheduling things and races
and people, then when you look at the Big series
and you see they're going through that same process, it
(35:16):
makes it hard to make comments like why are they
going here? What are they doing there? Because there's so
much more behind the scenes that we don't know about.
But I feel like either three manufacturers or just one.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Oh yeah, you know, that's actually a good idea.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I never thought about that. Why did I never consider
the one manufacturer? Because then they could do all the
cars and the R and D wouldn't actually have to.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Be wouldn't be expensive, right right, Then you would have
more affordability, they would be working on longevity issues instead of,
you know, trying to keep going faster and faster, and
then the development side would be more on the team side.
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
And speaking of floating it, so you've seen IMS and
IndyCar go through all of the iterations from the nineties
all the way through which is from the Tony George days,
and then seeing Roger by it and have all the
different people running it. Do you like where it's at now?
Do you think that it's heading in the direction that
you would have taken it in? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Yeah, I want to go back to Richmond. I want
to go back to Nazareth. I don't want to go
back to Colorado all those short track places because I
think that truly brings in the driver to an oval
racing scenario. But hey, whatever is behind the scenes for that.
They were talking about Richmond a couple of years ago,
and I'm like, oh my god, yes, finally, but whatever,
(36:39):
I think that where it's headed from here on the
tech side. I just hope we survive the next two
years of that critical turn. I guess I can't remember
the last time that they that they penalized someone at
the five hundred post race.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Well, I will like you get back to your mowing.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
It was a pleasure speaking to you, and I will
talk to you about Indy later.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yes, we'll have to do. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Thanks for listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next
week with more updates and more overtakes. We want to
hear from you. Leave us a review in Apple Podcasts
and tell us what you want to talk about. It
might just be the topic for our next show. Throttle
Therapy is hosted by Katherine Legg. Our executive producer is
Jesse Katz, and our supervising producer is Grace Fuse. Listen
(37:38):
to Throttle Therapy on America's number one podcast network, iHeart,
open your free iHeart app and search throttle Therapy with
Catherine Legg and start listening
Host
Katherine Legge
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