Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Sitting on sidelines not easy for Fisher

Friday, Sept. 24, 1999 | 10:45 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand's motor sports notebook appears Friday. Reach him at bh@lasvegassun.com or 259-4089.

Sarah Fisher has no reservations about becoming the first female driver to compete regularly on the Indy Racing League circuit. At the age of 18, she isn't hesitant to slide into the cockpit of a car that is capable of running at speeds of 225 mph.

She has just one complaint.

"The only problem I have is that I like to work on the cars and they're not going to let me do that," Fisher said. "That's the only thing I really don't like, but I guess you've got to live with it if you're going to be a professional driver."

Fisher, a three-time World Karting Association champion from Dayton, Ohio, is scheduled to make her IRL debut in the Oct. 17 season finale at Texas Motor Speedway. She originally had planned to start Sunday's Vegas.com 500 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but time constraints forced her to wait another month.

Fisher admitted it will be difficult watching Sunday's race from the other side of the pit wall.

"It's hard to go to a race like this and not be a big part of it, to not be one of the drivers," Fisher said. "But I guess you have to put up with that. We'll survive it."

Displaying the maturity of a driver twice her age, Fisher opted not to run the Vegas.com 500 until she had a solid team in place -- although she had been approved to compete after she passed her IRL rookie test last month at LVMS.

"Being a rookie driver, I don't need a rookie crew, because that would be a double whammy," Fisher said. "We're trying to assemble a crew of good people who have good attitudes and who want to do the best job that they can.

"My biggest concern is people. Being a rookie driver, I'm going to mess up. Yeah, I'm going to make mistakes and I just want to have the best people behind me so when the mess-up happens, it has to be (my fault). I just need that kind of support and that kind of backing from my own team."

Assembling a team to campaign a car for Team Pelfrey has been a more daunting task than Fisher imagined. But she said she didn't feel the fact she is a woman was scaring off potential employees.

"I think it's just that I haven't been in this crowd enough to know who to go talk to, and who I want," Fisher said. "Once the person sees me race, they know that I can drive and that I have the capability to do good.

"I don't have any problems with people shying away from me, it's just a matter of me trying to find the right people because I don't know who is out there."

Fisher said she will test next week at Texas with Team Pelfrey driver Robby Unser, using the session to get comfortable driving with other cars on the track and working on pit stops.

"We'll do a lot of pit-stop practice because driving midgets and sprints, I've never had to make pit stops before," Fisher said.

"Robby will run with me and we'll have the radios hooked together so Robby and I can communicate on the track. It will give me a good idea how the cars act under the different drafting positions and so forth. That way, I'm not lost on race day when they throw me out to the wolves."

Although Fisher's effort at Texas will be backed by her longtime short-track sponsor, Mead Carbonless Papers, she said she and team owner Dale Pelfrey are busy trying to secure a primary sponsor for the 2000 season.

Fisher will be the sole driver for Team Pelfrey next season.

* NASCAR: In what should come as no surprise to anybody involved in the sport, NASCAR is the top-rated professional sport in terms of marketing, according to a survey published by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal.

In terms of marketing its sport, NASCAR received a 96.6 grade from more than 1,200 corporate sports sponsors. The NFL was second (86.4), followed by the NBA (82.4), PGA Tour (72.6) and WNBA (54.5). ...

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has out-qualified his father, Dale, in all four of the Winston Cup events he has attempted to run this season. ...

Jeff Gordon remains the only driver who has qualified in the first round for every single Winston Cup race this year.

* CART: Rookie Juan Montoya can clinch the CART FedEx Championship Series title this weekend if he leaves Sunday's Texaco Grand Prix of Houston with a lead of 44 points or more. Montoya holds a 28-point lead over Dario Franchitti entering the race.

If Franchitti fails to earn a point in Houston, where he is the defending race champion, Montoya could clinch the championship by finishing second, or by finishing third and collecting the bonus points for winning the pole and leading the most laps.

* IRL: In addition to the seven rookie drivers entered in Sunday's Vegas.com 500, there are eight drivers who have competed in the rival CART series during their careers.

Scott Goodyear, Eliseo Salazar, Stephan Gregoire, Scott Sharp, Mark Dismore, Willy T. Ribbs, Eddie Cheever and Buddy Lazier all have driven in CART before joining the IRL.

The rookies entered in Sunday's race are Scott Harrington, John Hollansworth Jr., Ronnie Johncox, Niclas Jonsson, Jaques Lazier, Robby McGehee and Ribbs.

* BACKMARKERS: Despite season-low fourth- and 14th-place finishes in their last two races, the three straight victories in Class 1-2/1600 they started this season with have kept San Diego's Vic Bruckmann and Jason Hatz atop their class and the overall points standings through Round 5 of the six race Laughlin SCORE Desert Series.

Closing the gap in the hunt for the overall championship are three Southern Nevada racers -- Troy Herbst of Las Vegas, Bekki Freeman of Henderson and Las Vegas' Danny Anderson.

Herbst, who leads the unlimited Class 1 after two straight wins, is second overall while Freeman is third overall and second in Class 1-2/1600. Anderson, who has taken over the Class 10 points lead after his second consecutive win, is fourth.