INDIANAPOLIS 500 : Cheever Finds Comfort Zone at 230 m.p.h.

Eddie Cheever was voted rookie of the year in last year’s Indianapolis 500 after finishing eighth, but he readily admits: “I was only holding on, trying to keep off the walls and out of anyone’s way.”

It shouldn’t have been surprising, because Cheever had been in 132 Formula One races--with their tire-wall barriers, wide runoff areas and comparatively slow speeds--and only one on an oval before challenging the 2 1/2 miles of concrete walls around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“Oval and road races have nothing in common except for pedals for the brakes and throttle,” Cheever said. “Speeds are so high at Indy, it has no relationship to speeds in Formula One. We run 230 (m.p.h.) going for the first turn at Indy. In a Grand Prix, at most I’d go 180 into a corner.”

The Phoenix native, 33, who spent most of the first 30 years of his life living abroad, is eagerly awaiting his second Indy 500 on Sunday, when he will be driving a Lola-Chevy for owner Chip Ganassi. Cheever will be starting in 10th position--on the inside of the fourth row.

“I’m a little disappointed at my starting position, but the way qualifying went, this is going to be a strange start anyway,” he said.

Because several drivers of fast cars were fooled by the weather and did not qualify on the first day, the fifth row of Gary Bettenhausen, Arie Luyendyk and Emerson Fittipaldi is faster than the front row of Rick Mears, A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti.

“No matter what, it should be easier than last year,” Cheever said. “It would be a lie if I said I didn’t have a hard time last year. Everything I had been taught about racing I had to forget when I drove here.

“In road racing, a driver reacts to the car, then makes his correction. Sometimes you may over-correct, but you still react. Here, there is no time to react. You must anticipate. If you get to the point where you should react, it’s too late.

“You may instinctively try to react, but surely the result will be the same. You will be into a wall.”

It’s a wonder Cheever migrated from Grand Prix to Indy cars after his first experience watching an oval race. It was at Michigan in 1984, and he dropped in to visit an old friend from Formula One, Danny Sullivan.

“I was standing in the second corner when the cars began to warm up,” he said. “I thought it would be four or five minutes before anything happened when suddenly Bobby Rahal came by me going about 230 m.p.h. I must have jumped 10 feet in the air. I couldn’t believe what I saw. By the time I was able to focus, he was gone. I had never seen such speed--sheer, blinding speed--in all my years of racing. That is what makes Indy so fascinating, the speeds.”

Cheever drove his first oval race last year on the mile track at Phoenix. He quickly learned the difference between qualifying on an oval and on a road circuit when he lost control and spun 400 yards.

“It was a very cheap lesson,” he said. “I hit nothing and people said it was good driving to keep the car off the walls, but that’s hard to believe when your eyes are closed and you’re screaming.”

Cheever has approached Indy much as he would a road course, however, dividing its four turns and four straightaways into separate segments.

“Turn 1 is the biggest problem,” he said. “When you’re coming down the front straightaway and see the turn coming at you, your first instinct is that you’ll never make it through. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to keep your foot down, but it also takes a lot of knowledge to make it through smoothly.

“Turn 3 is the next biggest problem, but for some reason it doesn’t seem as frightening or as difficult as the first one. How you get through Turn 2 is the consequence of how you get through Turn 1, and Turn 4 bears the same relationship to Turn 3.

“You practice with special emphasis on getting in and getting out of the corners. They look alike but each one is different, and you have to continually make compromises to get your car in balance and then keep it that way.

“Last year, there was an added problem. Me. I was on a learning curve, with everything new to me. And the Ganassi crew was on a learning curve, too, because new rule changes had made my car--the one Fittipaldi won the ’89 500 with--radically different aerodynamically. We were a new team starting out with an empty data base.”

Despite his newness to oval races, Cheever had one of the best records among CART drivers in the two 500s, the eighth place at Indy and a fourth at Michigan. Only Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Rahal did better.

Cheever, who is moving his wife and daughter from Rome to a new chalet in Aspen, Colo., believes this may be the year for him to win. He was third twice last year, at Detroit and Toronto, and also finished third this year at Long Beach. He was running third in Australia when Al Unser Jr. spun in front of him and knocked his car out of the race.

In 132 Formula One races over 11 seasons, Cheever never won. His last victory of any kind was in a Group C world endurance championship race in 1986 in a Jaguar.

“There is a big difference between our team this year and last,” he said. “That makes me much more confident about the season.

“Last year we had a bunch of good doers, mechanics who were good at making sure the pieces did not fall off. This year, in addition to them, we have excellent thinkers, too. We didn’t have them last year, and with racing technology the way it is today with all its electronics and aerodynamics, it is important for a team to have its own engineers.”

Ken Anderson, the team’s chief engineer, came from Team Penske, where he worked on three winning Indy 500 cars between 1985 and 1988.

“I also have a better Indy comfort level,” Cheever said. “I know more about handling a car at these speeds. This year, the first time I slid in the corners was during qualifying. Last year, I was sliding around every day.

“I feel good about our race setup. I wouldn’t be uncomfortable, for instance, going into a corner three abreast on Sunday. I don’t want to have to do it, but I wouldn’t be uncomfortable if I had to.”