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Tuesday, July 3
Tight racing makes for short tempers
By Jack Arute
ESPN.com
| |  | | | Salazar |
| |  | | | Cheever |
Everyone expected tight racing at Richmond, Va. Patience was the operative word spoken by every driver before they dropped the green flag on the Sun Trust Indy Challenge.
"I think the smaller the track, the more patience you have to have," Al Unser Jr. said. "It's going to be a deal of surviving."
Buddy Lazier survived, as did Sam Hornish Jr. and Unser to sweep the top-three finishing spots. But the smoke has yet to dissipate from the collision involving Eddie Cheever Jr. and Eliseo Salazar on lap on 214 of the 250-lap race. The accident happened when Cheever attempted to duck inside Salazar heading into Turn 3. When Cheever did, his right front tire made contact with Salazar's left rear, crashing them both.
The impact lifted Salazar's A.J. Foyt-owned Oldsmobile off the ground and sent the Chilean to a local hospital for a precautionary CT scan, which turned out negative. Cheever was treated and released from the infield care center.
I caught up with Cheever outside the infield infirmary and got his thoughts regarding the contact. After all, this was the guy who was so outspoken regarding the tactics used by his fellow drivers a couple of weeks previous at Texas Motor Speedway.
"We will just have to wait and see," Cheever said. "That's why there are IRL officials to make the call instead of me."
It's Tuesday, and so far no word has come down from the IRL. Most likely there will be no word.
Why?
Because ¾-mile racing is the ultimate Bull Ring. Just look at NASCAR.
When they take to places like Richmond, Bristol, Tenn., or Martinsville, Va., their cars end up looking like they've been through a shredder. Those that are lucky escape with battered cars and bruised egos.
That, however, has not stopped Foyt from crying foul.
"He (Cheever) knew it'd be tough to pass Salazar on the track, because it was a one-groove track for the leaders," wrote Foyt in his weekly USA Today column and in a diary on his team's official website. "With all the preaching we heard from Cheever about how the drivers shouldn't be so aggressive because they could kill somebody, I figured he'd take his own advice to heart. What he did was pull the same move that he was so critical of several weeks before at the Texas race, shoving his car's nose in where it had nowhere to go but into the other guy's car."
Despite Foyt's accusations, a debate rages about who should shoulder the blame for the accident. Some feel Salazar was overly aggressive throughout the race and should have given more room to Cheever, considering the fact Cheever's right front was parallel to Eliseo's cockpit.
There may be some validity to this when you look at the replays of the accident. When the two touched, Salazar's rear end came off the ground. If Cheever's front wheel hit Salazar's rear wheel from behind, odds are Salazar would have spun instead of lurching forward devoid for a split second of rear wheel traction.
If the rear of Eliseo's car lifted up from being drilled from the rear, then the hit would have had to have been towards the gearbox area instead of the wheel. Even Foyt admits in his musings the two touched wheels.
"I guarantee you, even if Salazar had stayed as high as Cheever wished, Cheever still would have hit Salazar because Cheever never would have made the turn," Foyt wrote. "He came in too hard and too low. Instead of hitting Salazar in the rear wheel as he did, he would have hit him in the front wheel."
But what if Cheever's front wheel contacted the front of Salazar's forward spinning rear wheel?
Then, Salazar's wheel would be likely to roll over Cheever's and lift Salazar's car.
The bottom line is the two touched and ended great drives. The war of words will continue with the race this weekend at Kansas City. We will never know for sure what happened. But, it's nice to have a little passion to go with our motorsports instead of just sponsor caps and corporate partners. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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