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Late charge Cheever slips past IRL points leader for Kansas win
Updated: Sunday July 08, 2001 10:37 PM
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- Through the first half of the Indy Racing League season, Eddie Cheever Jr.'s praise for his Infiniti engine was drowned out by the roar of Oldsmobiles propelling other drivers to victory. Sunday, Cheever finally got the last word. "I had a secret weapon behind me today," said Cheever, who passed Sam Hornish Jr. with slightly more than two laps to go for his first victory of the season in the inaugural Ameristar Casino Indy 200 at the new Kansas Speedway. "The Infiniti engine is finally where we want it to be. We've worked hard for the past three years." Cheever also won at Pikes Peak last year with an Infiniti-powered car, but a succession of crashes this season had kept him out of Victory Lane and out of the top 10 in the points standings.
The 1998 Indianapolis 500 winner owns his own car and receives backing from Infiniti but is racing without a major sponsor - "a situation that has to change," he said. "We've never been right there at the end," said Cheever, whose fifth IRL victory prevented series champion Buddy Lazier from becoming only the second driver to win three consecutive events on the circuit. "We could have won Texas. We could have won Richmond." It was the third second-place finish in a row for Hornish, the IRL points leader. He took the lead from Cheever on the 191st of 200 laps on the 1.5-mile oval, but Cheever regained it approaching the fourth turn on the 198th. His .1976 of a second margin of victory was the fifth-closest in IRL history. "It was side-by-side racing -- he gave me room, I gave him room," said Hornish, who leads Lazier by 60 points in the standings. "I like racing with guys like Eddie, because you know they're not going to do something to put you into the wall." Cheever said the same of Hornish, who has two wins and six top-five finishes this season. "Sam could give etiquette lessons to 90 percent of the drivers out there," Cheever said. Donnie Beechler was third, followed by Felipe Giaffone, Lazier, Airton Dare, Eliseo Salazar, Shigeaki Hattori, Billy Boat and Robby McGehee. McGehee was racing for the first time since he broke his left leg, cracked a rib and got a concussion in a crash June 9 at Texas Motor Speedway. The only other driver who runs with an Infiniti engine, Robby Buhl, went out after 54 laps with engine problems.
"There were a lot of laps left. I figured I'd be able to get Eddie somewhere," Sharp said. "All of a sudden, I felt a little wobble in the back of the car. The rear end just snapped around. Something must have broken." The caution after Sharp's crash allowed Hornish to make up for a disastrous stall in the pits in the 107th lap. Hornish dropped to 11th, but made a fast pit stop under caution and was second behind Cheever when racing resumed in the 148th lap. Jeret Schroeder crashed on the 149th, precipitating another caution, but neither Cheever nor Hornish pitted. Despite continued hot weather in Kansas City, the sold-out, 75,000-seat speedway was nearly full for the IRL race. The temperature was 93 degrees at the noon CDT start with a track temperature of 127.
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