INDYCAR: Fisher Moving Ahead, Orders Two 2012 Cars

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Fisher Moving Ahead, Orders Two 2012 Cars

Sarah Fisher's team won its first race last month at Kentucky, but despite losing her driver and primary sponsor, she's not slowing down for 2012.

Marshall Pruett | Posted November 14, 2011

Andy O'Gara and Sarah Fisher, left, celebrated their first win at Kentucky in October with Ed Carpenter, right, behind the wheel. Now the team is looking for a new driver to deliver win No. 2. (LAT)

Four years after starting out with a shoestring budget and no prayer of going head-to-head with the bigger teams in the IZOD IndyCar Series, SFR owners Sarah Fisher and her husband, Andy O’Gara, shocked the open-wheel establishment when driver Ed Carpenter drove the No. 67 Dollar General car into Victory Lane at Kentucky last month.

But what should have served as a time for celebration at Sarah Fisher Racing—the catalyst for bigger and better things—didn’t last very long.

Moments after earning SFR’s first win, Fisher announced that Dollar General—her primary sponsor since 2009--would be leaving the team, and just two weeks ago, Carpenter revealed he’d left SFR to form his own team.

As Fisher told SPEED.com, despite the appearance of doom and gloom, the team continues to move ahead with its plans for 2012.

“We’re nothing but excited and supportive of Ed’s new program; he was a real delight to work with this past year,” she said. “But moving forward from the team side, we were looking at doing a full season and needing to make some changes on the road course side. I’m such a fan of Ed’s that I was going to put together an oval program for him, but that wasn’t going to be our primary program anyways. I think some figured [Carpenter leaving] was the demise of SFR. Really, it’s the other way around, but we’ll always be thankful for his help in winning our first race.”

SFR and Carpenter showed well on other ovals, qualifying eighth at Indy before settling for 11th at the finish. The team also took 11ths at Iowa and New Hampshire, highlighting its emphasis on ovals, but the combo struggled--as expected--on road and street courses, with finishes ranging from 20th to 25th.

SFR's foray into road and street course racing produced limited results in 2011, which the team plans to resolve for 2012. (LAT)

As Fisher details, building on SFR’s strengths and addressing its weaknesses is also part of the team’s plans.

“Looking at the positives, we won as a team at Kentucky, which might have been slightly lost in some sections,” she said. “Everyone here has worked amazingly hard to get us to a point to where we could earn that first win, and that same core will be together for next year. We spent a whole lot of money to make sure we had every piece of equipment, every gadget, every development; we didn’t stop pushing because this was the last year for the Dallara. That approach will continue with the new car in every area.”

Finding a replacement for Dollar General has kept Fisher quite busy since the season ended, and it appears some progress has been made.

Who should Sarah hire to drive? Click here to comment below!

“Looking ahead, we have some really bright things on our horizon,” she continued. “I’m not ready to announce anything at this moment; I don’t expect next season’s plans to be a ‘lump sum’ deal; there’s probably going to be many [sponsorship] pieces that help make up the whole.

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