Miserable month ends for Fisher

Crash leaves her team in doubt

INDIANAPOLIS -- Nobody had a worse May -- or a worse race day -- than Sarah Fisher.

First, her sponsors backed out of their deals after Fisher and her husband poured their life savings into her new race team. Then, armed with a new set of sponsors for Sunday's Indianapolis 500, Fisher endured a whole new set of problems, culminating with her No. 67 car being taken out in a crash on Lap 106.

Like the rest of the month, it wasn't even her fault.

"I've been known my whole career to be able to get out of incidents like that," Fisher said, crying. "That's the crazy thing about this sport. This is going to set us back a little bit. I think I've experienced every emotion there is to it."

Fisher crashed three times in her first four career starts at Indy, but this race day might have been the worst of all.

When Mari Hulman George gave the traditional command for drivers to start their engines, Fisher sat on the starting grid waiting for her crew to fire the engine as the other 32 cars pulled away.

Once she got started, Fisher used the pace laps to get back into her No. 22 starting position.

But just 13 laps into the race, Fisher spun entering the third turn, stalling the car and gliding to a stop in the grass near the pit entrance. Fortunately, she didn't hit the wall, and after the crew checked the car and got it restarted, Fisher made it back onto the track.

It still wasn't over.

When race leader Tony Kanaan hit the wall in turn three, he slid across the track right in front of Fisher -- who had nowhere to go -- and sent her into the wall near pit road.

Fisher had hoped to run two more races this season on the IndyCar circuit, but Sunday's misfortune and 30th-place finish might have ended that dream, too.

"I really wanted to go to Kentucky, and now I don't know if we're going to do that or not," she said.

It was the second consecutive year three women started the race. Danica Patrick finished 22nd after being taken out in a pit crash, while Venezuela's Milka Duno was 19th after crashing on Lap 169.

ROOKIE PARADE: Eleven rookies started Sunday's race. Only six finished. That's not surprising given what normally happens with first-timers on the historic 2.5-mile oval.

Graham Rahal, at 19 the youngest driver to win an IndyCar race, was the first one out when he tried to pass a slowing Alex Lloyd in the fourth turn. Rahal went high, ended up too high and slammed into the wall.

He wasn't the last to have a problem.

Included among the mangled at day's end were rookies Justin Wilson, Rahal's teammate, Jaime Camara and Alex Lloyd.

The top rookie finisher was Ryan Hunter-Reay, who started 20th and finished sixth. The improvement was the second-biggest of the day, matching two other rookies -- Spain's Oriol Servia and Brazil's Enrique Bernoldi. Servia went from 25th to 11th, and Bernoldi went from 29th to 15th.

Another rookie who fared well was Japan's Hideki Mutoh. Mutoh started ninth, stayed in the top 10 much of the day and finished seventh.

Will Power, the 26-year-old Australian who was the 2006 Champ Car rookie of the year, finished 13th.

PIT STOPS: When Tony Kanaan took the lead on Lap 94, he set an Indy record by leading in his seventh consecutive 500. He and Rick Mears had shared the record at six. ... Buddy Rice also led early Sunday, marking the first time since his 2004 win he's held the lead at Indy.