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NorthernLight IRL: Eddie Cheever posts another top ten finish in IRL competition

20 March 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

Eddie Cheever, Jr. - #51 Excite@Home Indy Race Car
MCI WorldCom Indy 200 at Phoenix International Raceway - March 17-19, 2000
Indy Racing Northern Light Series - Round 2 of 9
Sunday, March 19, 2000 - Post-Race Notes and Quotes

Qualified: 8th
Finished: 10th
Season Rank: 6th

Hometown favorite Eddie Cheever Jr. drove his all-new #51 Excite@Home Indy Race Car to a hard-fought tenth place finish in today's MCI WorldCom Indy 200 at Phoenix International Raceway. Cheever's RaceDay performance matches his best ever Phoenix result (tenth in 1998). Cheever, who qualified eighth and led 13 laps of the 200-lap event, was running in fourth when he was struck from behind by Jeret Schroeder. The contact damaged his left rear tire, forcing Cheever to pit for a replacement and dropping him to tenth place.

Cheever: "The Infiniti engine was very strong today, and this is the second race in which we've run really well. I wanted to be in the top three because I thought we could make a good run for the win, but I got hit from behind by Schroeder [on lap 161]. My left rear tire went down halfway through the corner and I couldn't believe it. It was a miracle that I kept it off the wall - I missed it by about a millimeter.

It certainly would have been nice to get the first win in the newly-liveried Excite@Home Indy Race Car. If not for the incident with Schroeder, I'm sure we would have been there at the end. We were running as fast as the leaders in the last thirty laps, and the Excite@Home Indy Race Team did a great job today."

Primary sponsorship of the #51 Indy Race Car comes from Excite@Home. The company is based in Redwood City, California, at the heart of Silicon Valley. Associate Sponsors of Team Cheever include Indy Promotional Products, netoy.com, Menards, Ceramiche Ragno, Infiniti, Firestone, Bosch and Pennzoil.

Excite@Home , the leader in broadband, offers media services through Excite Network (www.excite.com, www.bluemountain.com, webshots.com and other properties), and broadband subscription services through @Home (www.home.com) and @Work (www.work.home.net). The company has a worldwide footprint of 72 million cable homes under long-term contract. Excite@Home's MatchLogic subsidiary (www.matchlogic.com) offers marketers industry-leading digital advertising solutions including rich media production, targeted ad and email services, and datamart management and analysis.

Text provided by Ashleigh Higgins

Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot racing photos and art, visit The Racing Photo Museum and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.