Start your engines!
Play RPM.ESPN Stock Car Challenge!
Win a Honda S2000!
Play The CART Challenge powered by Honda!
|
|
Tuesday, April 10
Cheever to enter four cars at Indy
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS -- Arie Luyendyk was the first driver to enter this year's Indianapolis 500, and Eddie Cheever will be among the last.
"It's like paying your taxes: Pay them right at the end," said Cheever, the 1998 Indy 500 winner and the Indy Racing League's only owner-driver. "I always submit my entries at the last minute."
|  | | Eddie Cheever, the Indy Racing League's only owner-driver, won the 1998 Indianapolis 500. |
Cheever, who has struggled through the first two IRL races this season with a new Infiniti engine, said he will enter four cars Wednesday, two for him and two for teammate Scott Goodyear.
Entries postmarked before midnight Wednesday will be accepted. Two cars for former series co-champion Buzz Calkins were submitted Monday, and Speedway spokesman Fred Nation said he expected maybe 55 entries -- most of them with more than one car -- to compete for the 33 starting spots in the May 27 race.
Luyendyk, a two-time winner, is coming out of retirement and was among the first batch of entries submitted by Treadway Racing six weeks ago. Among the entries last week were cars for Sam Hornish Jr., the series leader this season with victories at Phoenix and at Homestead, Fla.
"We got the new Infiniti engines late, a week before Phoenix," Cheever said Monday. "We were running OK at Phoenix, probably would have finished third, but had a little throttle (problem) and that cost us and we finished 18th."
He was ninth at Homestead on Sunday and called it "a terrible race, the worst race I've ever had with handling in a car."
Cheever planned to test in Atlanta on Tuesday.
"A lot of how we're going to do depends on these next tests, but I think we'll be in good shape," he said. "I think it's the best opportunity we've had to win Indy since 1998."
The Indy entry list so far also includes three teams from the rival CART series, including cars for Michael Andretti of Team Green, Helio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran of Penske Racing, and rookies Nicolas Minassian and Bruno Junqueira of Chip Ganassi Racing.
Ganassi won the 500 last year with CART series champion Juan Montoya, who is now competing in Formula One.
Another CART team expected to enter Indy, Walker Racing, also fields a car in the IRL series for Sarah Fisher, who was second to Hornish at Homestead.
Other drivers already entered include former Indy winner and defending series champion Buddy Lazier, 1999 IRL champion Greg Ray and veterans Scott Sharp, Mark Dismore, Robbie Buhl, Davey Hamilton, Stephan Gregoire and Jeff Ward.
"Every time I've entered Indy, I've always considered the track my biggest enemy, not the race drivers," Cheever said of the field at Indianapolis, expected this year to be the strongest since the IRL was formed in 1996. "The race drivers are just a hindrance you have to deal with on this 500 miles, and at the end there will be two or three you're going to have to battle with if you're lucky to be in that leading group.
"But every year, historically the field at Indy has gotten more difficult," he said. "Ever since the new IRL rules came into play six years ago, it's very difficult for anybody to have a big advantage on equipment."
Cheever said he was not surprised by the success of Hornish, 21, or Fisher, 20, who at Homestead became the youngest 1-2 finishers in Indy racing history.
"I think it's the way our cars are regulated, so nobody has an advantage," Cheever said. "The young drivers have an opportunity. If they're talented, if they keep their noses clean, they have as much chance as anybody." Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
|
|
|
|
