George Fisher
SprintCarUnlimited.com continues its list of the Top 25 Crew Chiefs since 1990 with George Fisher. The No. 8 crew chief might not have had the stats of some of his contemporaries, but he made up for it and excelled through innovation.
Photo courtesy of Blake Anderson, All Star Circuit of Champions.
Accomplishments: Fisher raced with his brothers, Charlie and Dave Fisher, and a variety of drivers in the early 90s. From 1995 to 1998, Fisher moved over to work for Jim Nier in the familiar No. 00 machine. Fisher then hooked up with Fritz Andrews and the No. 72 machine in 1998. In 2002, Dale Blaney and Fisher combined on the Andrews team to win two races with the All Star Circuit of Champions and followed it up with four wins a year later. In 2004, Blaney and Fisher rattled off a series-leading seven wins with the All Stars. Despite working for the City of Columbus, Fisher got into the ownership game in 2005 and remained there through 2009. Blaney, who was promoting races at Sharon Speedway, was Fisher’s driver, and they won seven more All Star events in 2006 and 2007 despite not running full time. In 2008. Blaney and Fisher won nine events on their way to an All Star title and followed it up with eight wins over the next two seasons. As good as Fisher was as a crew chief, it’s his innovation that set him apart. Fisher and Blaney beat the World of Outlaws at the Brad Doty Classic in 2010 and in October of that same year, Fisher launched GF-1 Chassis. He also developed bird cages on his earlier cars, and the design was copied by Ti22. It should also be noted that Fisher developed a rear wing tree that was adjustable back and forth and also up and down. It was eventually deemed illegal by the World of Outlaws. On the track, Blaney and Fisher kept winning races. In 2011 and 2012, Blaney notched 17 wins in the familiar No. 2 and finished second to Tim Shaffer in the All Star points. Fisher and Blaney broke through in 2013 and won six times to win the All Star title. In 2014, Blaney moved over to the Tom Kennedy ride and took Fisher with him. They won 16 times that season and earned their third All Star title together. Blaney and Fisher paired with Janet Holbrook in 2015 and spent two years flying GoMuddy.com colors, winning 19 All Star events and the 2015 All Star title. Fisher and Blaney also won the 2015 Silver Cup and open competition Winter Heat event in 2016. Fisher died later that year.
Did You Know: Fisher displayed that trademark smile in Victory Lane plenty during his career, but he was very private guy, according to Dale Blaney. He didn’t take a lot of people under his wing and didn’t talk to many people at the racetrack. Fisher was quiet and was hard to approach, but if he liked you, he would talk to you, give any advice needed, and do anything for you. Fisher, who was also extremely competitive, liked Blaney, and the two stayed together for 14 years, which is a rarity in Sprint Car racing. “I tell this to a lot of people, the reason we were together a long time — trust me, we were like brothers and would argue at times — but I think he respected me because of that, and I respected him,” Blaney said. “We were both competitive and if you have two competitive guys, you are going to get after it. When we ran good, he always thought it was because of me, and I always thought it was because of him. When we ran bad, he always thought it was because of himself, and I always thought it was because of me. Trust me, when we had bad nights, he would say, ‘My fault.’ I would say, ‘No, that was my fault.’ When we ran really good and won races, I said, ‘Man, you had it really good.’ He would say, ‘Ah, man, you did all the work.’ The reason we got along and stayed together so long is because we matched each other’s egos.”
Why Here: Fisher and Blaney won 96 All Star Circuit of Champions events together, as well as four series titles, and four Ohio Speedweek titles before his death. The tandem also captured the Knight Before the Kings Royal in 2004, the Brad Doty Classic (2010), and Silver Cup (2015) against the World of Outlaws. But stats don’t tell the story of Fisher. He was an innovator. He could not only build his own chassis and motors, he built bird cages and the needle bearings on the torsion bar rack. Fisher also built his teams from 2005 through 2009 with little sponsorship and turned it into a winner. Innovation combined with results earned Fisher the respect of everyone in the pit area and a top-10 spot on this list.
They said it: “George just had a good feel for what I wanted. When he first started racing, they built everything on the racecar, so they built the frames, the wings, bird cages, everything. When you build everything at an early age, you understand what things do. He was extremely smart and knew everything about everything. He knew how to weld, knew how to build cars … he knew everything and knew what everything did on a racecar. The most important thing is that he had a good feel for what a car should feel like and look like. He could look at it on the racetrack and know what was wrong with it. We didn’t talk a ton, and he just knew what I liked and could see what was wrong in different places and would fix it.” — Sprint Car Hall of Fame driver Dale Blaney.
READ ABOUT THE OTHER CREW CHIEFS IN THE TOP 25
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