TheHOTTEST2018
THE QUEEN & HER
‘DRAGONESS’
T
here’s no question that
drag racing is a passion-driven
sport. Fame and fortune is far
less the motivator in this sport
that is defined by a true love
affair with speed and preci-
sion. Kathy Fisher embodies
this spirit. With a slew of accomplishments and
titles to her name, the fact that Fisher had to
pave her own way is not immediately evident in
her story. Despite backlash from family, Fisher
has done whatever it takes to be involved in the
sport. Her father introduced her to racing, but
she was on her own after that.
“My dad was racing when he and my mom met,”
Fisher stories. “According to my mom, the first
time I ever kicked was at Shelby Dragway when
he fired his car up. My dad set IHRA records
back in the day. I grew up working on cars. I
didn’t go to the pool or the amusement parks or
the mall with my friends. I was working on the
cars with my dad and I was at the track. I got an
opportunity to drive one of my dad’s cars when
I was 15. I didn’t have a driver’s license. Nobody
checked back then. So I got to race a little bit
that summer. I didn’t have the opportunity to
run Jr. Dragsters. There was a big gap between
being raised in the sport and when I was able to
get heavily involved in it as an adult.”
Those early seeds planted by her father took
strong roots. Fisher was hooked. “I didn’t get
to race again until I bought my own car off the
showroom floor in ‘99 and started going to my
local track by myself,” Fisher says. “My husband
at the time wasn’t into racing, so I would load
up and go to the track by myself. The first time I
did take my ex-husband with me, I went to the
final. I had him videoing from the stands. When
I won the semifinal, somebody next to him said
‘It’ll be another hour now.’ My ex responded, ‘Yeah,
this is getting kinda old.’ After that I told him he
didn’t need to go with me anymore.”
Despite the fact that neither her now ex-hus-
band nor her father supported her involvement in
the sport, Fisher set about making herself one of
the most versatile and marketable women in drag
racing. She used her radio broad-
casting background to launch a
career as an on-camera person-
ality for shows such as Perfor-
mance TV, Menards Chevy Show
and Bidding Wars on networks
like Velocity, MAVTV, Rev’n and
CBS Sports. She married fellow
racer Kevin Fisher in 2000 (at
their local track, no less!) and
the duo even produced their own
streaming show, Married With
Dragsters.
She was licensed in a drag-
ster in 2003 and began chasing
a series in 2005. As Fisher puts
it, “It’s been absolutely nonstop
since then.”
In addition to her ongoing
TV opportunities, Fisher helps
behind the scenes in the compa-
ny her husband started, Perfor-
mance by Fisher. She worked with Frank Hawley’s
Drag Racing School from ‘08-’13. And for the
last few years, she’s teamed up with renowned
sportsman racer Jacob Elrod to run and promote
a local Ohio trade show that’s been in existence
for 34 years.
Fisher’s first win was the 2007 IHRA Canadian
Nationals in Quick Rod, but it’s been Top Dragster
where Fisher’s on track accomplishments have
really started to draw attention. She ventured
to PDRA in 2015, winning the World Finals at
Virginia. The 2017 season saw Fisher’s first NHRA
national event final (Norwalk) and low qualifier
(Route 66), a win at PDRA’s Indy Showdown, and
recipient of Edelbrock’s “Never Rest Performer
of the Race”, an NHRA national event special
award. She finished third in PDRA Top Dragster
points standings, bettering her finish of fourth
from 2016.
Her car is named the “Dragoness” but she’s
more often refer