- Giuseppe Victorious
- Car or Driver
- Hy-Vee To Sponsor INDYCAR Weekend At The Historic Milwaukee Mile
- Rolex 24 Race Report
- HSR Classic 24 At Daytona
- Rennsport VII
- UPDATE: Ben Keating – Ironman
- Motul Petit Le Mans – Redemption
- IndyCar Returns To The Milwaukee Mile For A Tire Test
- Anticipation Builds as Larson Passes Indy 500 Rookie Test
Fourth Turn – Sarah Fisher
- Updated: August 25, 2009
The employees and families of Milwaukee’s Direct Supply gathered for a company picnic last week to meet “their” Indy Car driver, Sarah Fisher. Fisher, who has started eight Indianapolis 500’s, is in her second season as a driver/owner on the Indy Racing League tour. Her racing team is sponsored by the firm and she was in town to thank her supporters there because, as an employee-owned company, they are really also her sponsors.
“Direct Supply is very proud to be involved with Indy Car racing as a part of our long history with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” said Bob Hillis, company Chairman and CEO. “We are proud to sponsor and welcome Sarah Fisher, who our whole company has rallied around as the first woman to own a race team, ( and drive the car), in Speedway history.”
Thanking sponsors is important to Fisher, who recently made a similar trip to Kentucky to “meet and greet” with her other major backer, Dollar General. “Bob (Hillis) is part of our family and I’m sure we’ll be working together even beyond having partnerships through the racing team. (That relationship with Direct Supply) started with Tony George at the Speedway. He came along in 2008 and we needed help when we lost our sponsor. We had this car and we had all these people and we wanted to race.”
The company has helped support Fisher’s team since that season, and she hopes that the team will be able to weather the hurdles that lie ahead. “First and foremost we’ve got to grow to the full series. And once we figure that out we’ll then look at doing a second car at Indianapolis,” said Fisher whose team has run a limited IRL slate since its inception. “We’ve looked at growing our business one step at a time. We’re not going to just jump in and do a whole lot and lose ourselves. So it has to be the right decisions that we make because we’re a small business and we can’t feed it from somewhere else: it has to grow on its own.”
While she spent more than an hour signing autographs and posing for pictures with the company’s employees, she also commented on various things going on in her team and in Indy Car racing.
*As to her new car that she recently received as a surprise from some patrons: “It’s incredible. It gives us a little bit better preparation in terms of how we approach the weekend and each race event. We’re running one of the oldest chassis in the series, but we’re making do with that. It’s a good car so I’m not disappointed in it . But it’ll be nice to have a 2009 chassis. I didn’t know that was coming. The Hartman’s of Hartman Oil (a family who gifted Sarah with the new chassis) were second in line behind Bob Hillis in supporting us. They came on board the second week of the Indy 500 in 2008, and they’ve been a part of our family ever since.”
* On owning her own team : “I think that having the decision making ability to react quick to whatever situation we have is important, especially the way the industry is moving. And to be able to pick and hand select those people that we work with is vital to our success as a small team, As a small team we have to do more than what’s expected in order to survive. We have a group of core people who take a personal interest and really enjoy being there and want to succeed.”
*On the IRL: “I do believe in Indy Car racing or, obviously, I wouldn’t have invested my whole life in a racing team that races within that series. “
*On planned 2012 IRL engine/chassis changes: “It’ll definitely be a big capital outlay that we’re going to have to invest in. So as a small business I hope we’re at the point where we can do that.
So this Saturday at Chicagoland Speedway, Fisher will strap into her old racer for the last time, as that chassis will move to backup status for her final 2009 event later in the year in Miami. The new Dallara will be dressed in pink livery in Miami, supporting the Susan G. Komen For the Cure breast cancer research project.
And while she’s in Chicago, and later Miami, there’ll be more meeting and mixing with her fans. She’s very good at that, and good at driving a racecar; something that continues to keep her sponsors and supporters happy.
Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.
Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.
The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.
Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.
He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.
Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”