It took a woman to show the IndyCar Series (formerly IRL) how to do business. For months now, 21-year-old Graham Rahal, widely considered the brightest young open-wheeled American driver in racing, has been unable to get an Indy car ride. He’s watched slow foreigners get seats in competitive cars, because they’ve had the financial backing. The hammering question has been, What’s wrong with this picture? The rideless Rahal has recently been a hapless poster boy for the foundering business end of this all-American sport.

The IndyCar Series, even with its new marketing-guy CEO, has been pathetically powerless to get the clean-cut comet Rahal in its field. The season’s first race is this weekend in Brazil, and Rahal will be home in Ohio and miserable, watching on TV and knowing that he coulda been a contender.

But thanks to Sarah Fisher Racing, guided by Fisher’s husband Andy O’Gara, who’s also chief mechanic, Rahal will drive Sarah’s Dollar General Dallara-Honda in the following two races, on the street circuit at St. Petersburg—where Rahal won in 2008 to become the youngest Indy car winner at 19—and the green and rolling Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama.

Fisher was more than six seconds slower than leader Will Power during the IRL test at Barber on February 24-25, unhappy with her speed and uncomfortable on the road circuit—ovals are her experience and strength, she’s won a pole and twice finished on the podium. She and O’Gara invited Rahal to their Indianapolis shop, recently tripled in size, and he was impressed with the operation and the preparation of the car. Fisher then suggested the swap to her primary sponsor Dollar General, whose CEO would have been crazy not to go for it.

“I’ve lived by the motto that if you don’t have what it takes and others do, they should have that opportunity,” said Fisher, three times the IRL’s most popular driver. “And then I put my business hat on.”

That hat must be a good fit, because the deal looks like a win-win no-brainer. There will be much motorsports media attention on the Dollar General car at St. Petersburg, with the ’08 winner behind the wheel. Won’t rival the attention on Danica Patrick (who was 17th out of 21 at the Barber test), but Rahal is mature and well-spoken, and for two races at least, the son of three-time Indy car champ Bobby Rahal will be where he belongs. And Sara Fisher Racing will have a much better performance on the track.

Fisher has delivered to the IRL what it couldn’t do for itself.

She will be back in the car fast as ever, on the oval tracks.