Indy Cheers for Cheever

After driving without a win for nine years in Formula One and eight in Indy cars for a variety of car owners, Eddie Cheever decided that if he was ever going to win he’d better own the cars he drove too.

As owner and driver of the blue No. 51 Dallara-Aurora in Sunday’s 82nd Indianapolis 500, the 40-year-old Cheever hit the jackpot with a dramatic win over 1996 winner Buddy Lazier before more than 350,000 cheering race fans at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“I’m speechless and don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” said the usually garrulous Cheever after nearly 3 1/2 hours of racing. “Fifteen guardian angels were watching over me for this race.

“You can’t imagine what this means to me. I grew up in Italy, but when I started racing, my father told me that there’s only one race you have to win in motor racing, the Indianapolis 500. This one was for dad.”

Rookie Steve Knapp, who had never been in an Indy car race before, was a surprise third-place finisher and the only other driver on the lead lap with Cheever. Of the eight first-year drivers, four finished in the top 10--Robby Unser fifth, Andy Michner eighth and JJ Yeley ninth. Not since 1977, when A.J. Foyt did it, has an owner-driver won the 500, and not since 1987 when Al Unser started 20th has a winner started as far back as Cheever, who began the race in 17th position.

On a strange day that began damp and cold and ended hot and sunny, the race was as changing as the weather. Broken motors, a seven-car pileup and a new Pep Boys Indy Racing League rule contributed to a scorer’s nightmare.

Although Cheever led the most laps with 70, the lead changed 24 times among 10 drivers. Cheever first made it to the front on lap 64, but before he took the checkered flag he had lost and retaken the lead six times.

He took over from Lazier for good with 12 laps remaining and despite two nerve-racking restarts following yellow caution flags, he withstood Lazier’s challenge to win by 3.1 seconds.

For the first half of the 200-lap race, it didn’t pay to be the leader.

Billy Boat, the pole-sitter in one of Foyt’s two cars, led the first 12 laps but after being passed by Greg Ray, he was never heard from again.

“The car got loose at the start,” said Boat, who finished 23rd. “We lost 20 laps trying to fix a mechanical problem. At the end, I was just riding around and trying to hang on.”

Ray led for seven laps before he was passed by Indy Racing League champion Tony Stewart, the prerace favorite in a Team Menard car. When Stewart made a gutsy three-abreast pass of Ray going into the first turn on lap 21, he showed why he was the favorite.

The thought didn’t last long. Before Stewart completed a lap in the lead, his Dallara began smoking and he coasted to a stop in the first turn.

“It just broke, it popped and that was it,” Stewart said dejectedly.

This gave the lead back to Ray, who immediately fell victim of the leader’s jinx. With a 2.3-second lead over Kenny Brack, Foyt’s Swedish driver, Ray slowed on the backstretch and pulled into the warmup lane, his engine dead.

This put Brack in the eye of the storm. He swapped the lead during pit stops with Lazier and Buzz Calkins before he ran out of fuel and had to coast slowly the length of the front straightaway to reach his pit. When he compounded the mistake by stalling his engine, Brack had lost two laps, but finished sixth.

John Paul Jr., who missed last year’s race with injuries and who got a ride this year only after Danny Ongais was injured during practice two weeks ago, was the next to make a statement. He worked his Dallara into the lead by lap 98 and led off and on for 39 laps--second only to Cheever’s 76--when he fell from contention after stalling his engine on a pit stop. Five times it stalled before finally starting.

“I had a problem with the clutch overheating,” explained Paul. “I stalled it on the yellow and had to keep the throttle up. The last time it cooked the clutch. I had to start it in fourth gear. It’s my mistake and it won’t be easy to live with.”

Paul’s departure from the lead pack left the chase up to Cheever, Lazier and defending champion Arie Luyendyk, who quietly worked his way up from 28th to grab the lead by lap 148.

He picked up seven spots in a hurry when a Turn 1 accident knocked seven cars either out of the race or into the pits for repairs.

Jim Guthrie, who spun off the infield grass while trying to avoid several spinning cars, was the only driver injured when his car careened across the track to hit the inside wall head on. He was taken to Methodist Hospital where he underwent surgery on a broken right elbow, cracked ribs and a broken left fibula.

The cars of Stan Wattles, Billy Roe, Mark Dismore, Sam Schmidt and Guthrie were wiped out. Roberto Guerrero lost 10 laps and Marco Greco four making repairs.

Luyendyk could race, even pass Lazier and Cheever when he was running full bore, but when he pitted he had a balky clutch that slowed him down.

“On the first pit stop, we had a clutch problem,” he said. “Up until then I was going real well, but it was hard without a clutch. We had a good car, we could have won it. But it’s hard to get upset. We ran a good race.”

Luyendyk’s day ended on lap 151 with a broken gearbox.

This left the final 50 laps a sprint between Cheever and Lazier. They were out of sync on their pit stops, so when one stopped the other took the lead.

On lap 178, Lazier made his final pit stop and Cheever took the lead. Cheever ran 212 mph on his next to last lap, but his winning speed was only 145.155 mph because of 12 caution periods for 61 laps.

“The closest scare I got was on the start,” Cheever said. “I turned into the first turn and was bumped from behind. I said, ‘Aw, I don’t want it to end this way.’ ”

It didn’t. Those 15 guardian angels, and his dad, Eddie Cheever Sr.--who had never been involved in racing--were watching over him.