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Thursday, May 24
Saving best for last
By Eddie Cheever Jr.
Special to ESPN.com
A lot of people ask me what it's like to "ride around" the Indianapolis Motor Speedway circuit in an Indy car. During the Indianapolis 500, you don't really "ride around."
You're in a racing car that's going 220mph, and you've got a lot of cars very close to you.
The Indy Racing League is very competitive, and a lot of cars are running at very similar speeds. In order to differentiate yourself from everybody else, you've got to be aggressive in traffic. You've got to make sure that everybody stays away from your little area, and you've got to make the car better as you go along.
|  | | Cheever will start from the 25th position on Sunday. |
When you're out there on the track at Indy, it's like you're floating. Have you ever seen the way that a cat lifts its feet up when it's walking on something hot? That's what it feels like when you're on the limit. The car is just barely sticking.
There's barely enough rubber to stick on the circuit, so you're bouncing around all the time. You're skipping and slipping through the corner. You're moving the steering wheel just the smallest amount. The biggest mistake you can make is to try to correct what the car is doing. You don't want to do that.
Wind plays a very important role at Indianapolis. Cars are set up so that if you were to let go of the steering wheel on the straightaway, they would turn left by themselves. You're actually holding the car on the straightaway and then releasing it at the right moment to turn into a corner.
We pull 4.5 G's in Turns 1 and 3, which are the fastest corners, and probably 3.5 G's in Turns 2 and 4. There are also bumps turning into Turns 1 and 2, and a little ripple right in the middle of Turn 4. You have to make sure you know where those are. And if you have a car in front of you, it changes completely because you no longer have clean air and you have to alter your line.
When I'm on the track, I don't notice the stands or the suites or anything like that -- zip. I notice the flag, the windsock on the front stretch, the windsock going into Turn 3, and sometimes I look at the trees coming out of Turn 2 to see how bad the wind is.
I notice the wall. I'm focused on the wall. I've got a mental radar that's telling me how much steering I'm going to have to adjust to avoid hitting the wall.
The Indianapolis 500 is the most grueling and demanding race on drivers, teams, and equipment. The race is not won in the opening laps, but it certainly can be lost then.
I always view the first two laps of the race as an exercise in avoiding all of the cars and walls around you. Speed is truly irrelevant at the start of the race. It's like being in a pack of wolves that are all trying to run in the same direction, and I always think it's better to do the biting than be bitten.
In the beginning of the race, you'll fight with twenty other racing drivers for the same position, and then that fight will get down to fifteen. As the race goes on, that fight will get down to ten, and then inevitably you'll be fighting against those top three or four guys for that last little bit.
My approach in the last three or four years -- and it took me six years to understand this -- is that you have to go as fast as you can at the beginning of the race, but use the car the least amount possible.
I know that seems like a paradox, but it is absolutely true: you have to be ready, make your car a little bit better at every pit stop, and have to understand how much you're willing to risk at the end. If you do it just right, you'll have one or two miles left in your pocket for that last little sprint.
I always say that I want to win the Indy 500, but that's a little too much to ask: what I really hope for is to be in that leading pack for those last twenty laps with a good car underneath me so it's just head-to-head competition. Whoever has the most courage wins it.
IRL driver Eddie Cheever Jr. owns and drives the No. 51 Excite@Home Infiniti Indy car. He will be providing a diary to ESPN.com throughout the season. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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