Patrick, female pioneers search for equal ground in auto racing

Though often absent as he chased Funny Car titles, John Force found his daughter, Ashley, had taken to following in his racing footsteps. Heinz Kluetmeier/SI Related Links ANDERSON: Patrick faces higher expectations Top women drivers in auto racing today The best female athletes in the world SI VAULT: Muldowney the first lady of drag racing

By Jill Erwin, Special to SI.com

On the day Danica Patrick claimed her historic victory at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan last month, Kristin Bumbera was half a world away. Bumbera was running at Thunder Hill Raceway in Kyle, Texas, just south of Austin. She finished 11th in the Allstate Texas Thunder 150 Race, part of the Camping World West series. She was the only woman running. She's used to that.

Decades after Shirley Muldowney knocked down the gender barrier at the top levels of drag racing, success by women in motor sports is still largely hit or miss. But those who have followed the pioneers are now giving rise to more young drivers, and that next generation will one day be Patrick's legacy and that of today's other female racers.

Patrick became the first woman to win an open-wheel race when she passed Helio Castroneves and took the checkered flag April 20. She had several milestones prior to that, including a fourth-place finish at Indianapolis in 2005, which made her the highest-finishing and highest-qualifying (fourth) woman in the 500. She also became the first woman to lead multiple laps at Indy, running up front for 19 that year. As someone who said she always wanted to be known as a race car driver and not as a female race car driver, finally winning a race meant a lot.

"It's a first, and firsts are in history books," Patrick said of her Twin Ring Montegi triumph. "I've definitely thought about that before, and I've always hoped and wanted to be that person. It's probably one of the only things I ever really thought of myself as a girl. But I did think it would be nice to be the first female to win in history."

Patrick will try to make history again in Sunday's Indianapolis 500, but she and her fellow women drivers know it will still take some time -- and several more wins -- for women to be more than a blip on the radar screen in a male-dominated sport. Even last month's historic wins by Patrick in IndyCars and Ashley Force in the NHRA's Funny Car class won't cause an influx of competitive women at the top levels of racing. Melanie Troxel followed Force with a victory in Funny Car last week at Bristol, Tenn., her fifth overall victory in NHRA. Her previous four came in Top Fuel. However, the case of Sarah Fisher is proof that nothing will come easy for women in racing.

Fisher will start 22nd at this year's Indy, tying Lyn St. James for the most appearances by a woman with seven. (Milka Duno also made the field, putting three women in the Indy 500 starting lineup for the second consecutive year.) Fisher was the first woman to claim an IndyCar pole (2002 at Kentucky), and she still has the fastest qualifying time for a woman at Indy (229.439 mph average in 2002). But she continues to fight an uphill battle. Patrick's fame hasn't helped Fisher pay the bills. Along with her husband and father-in-law, she started Sarah Fisher Racing this year, and the 500 will be the team's first race. A failure by their first two sponsors to pay up has led Fisher to a different sponsorship plan: Text4cars.com has stepped in as primary sponsor, and both Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Hartman Oil are serving as associates. She has also accepted donations from fans.

Fisher knows what it's like to work her way up through the ranks, and she said her initial IndyCar splash in 1999 could show its effects in the next several years. "When I started, a lot of young girls looked up to what I was doing and because of that they started racing go-karts," Fisher said. "More girls are going to be able to see it's possible to be done.

Force grew up around racing. Her father, John Force, won a record 14 Funny Car titles. John has watched Ashley come up through the ranks, but her drive to succeed surprised even him. He admits he wasn't around for much of his children's formative years, always off chasing the next victory, but he found out about Ashley's race car dreams from a friend, who went to Ashley's school to do a program with a Funny Car team. He called John afterward to tell him Ashley was in an auto shop class at school. "I said, 'What the heck's she doing that for?'" John recalls. "I didn't know this about my own kid.