Eddie Cheever
51 Dallara/Aurora
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1998 Driver Profile
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Eddie Cheever had a strong season by anyone's standards. After shaky runs in the 1996 portion of the season, the owner/driver kept up with the leaders in the new equipment at Orlando. A freak series events, including a crash, a blown engine and a rain storm found Cheever in the winner's circle. He led the last four miles of the rain-shortened race for his first Indy car victory. His run at Indianapolis fell short with a bad timing chain, but he followed that with finishes of sixth (Texas), fourth (Pikes Peak), sixth (Charlotte) and ninth (New Hampshire). His strong midseason run was good enough to put him in a tie for third in the season standings. However, his strong year could not keep his team from dissolving. Cheever has reassembled a mostly new team, under his ownership, for 1998.
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Career
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Cheever won the Italian and European karting championships at age 15 and moved up to Formula Fords and was a teammate of Danny Sullivan on the Formula Three circuit. In 1987 and 1988 he won seven world sports car prototype races.
Cheever joined the PPG series circuit in 1990 after being the only American driver to compete in Formula One, where he made 133 starts. He won seven world sports car races for Jaguar in 1986-87. His best finish in 83 starts on the Indy circuit was second at Phoenix in 1992.
He was the 1990 CART and Indy 500 Rookie of the Year. He finished eighth at Indy in 1990 and fourth in 1992.
Courtesy SpeedNet, from the Indianapolis Star/News
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Driver Stats
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Team: Team Cheever
Series: Indy Racing League
Car: #51 Dallara/Aurora/Goodyear
Sponsor: Team Cheever
Car Owner: Cheever
Chief Mechanic: Owen Snyder III
Resides: Tampa, Fla.
D.O.B: 1/10/58
IRL victories: 1997: Orlando
IRL points (standing): 1996 - 147 (16th); 1996-97 - 230 (3rd, tied)
CART points (standing): 1990 - 80 (9th); 1991 - 91 (9th); 1992 - 80 (10th); 1993 - 21 (17th); 1994 - 5 (27th); 1995 - 33 (18th)
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