INDY 500: Eddie Cheever Notes and Quotes, Wednesday
18 May 2000
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
Eddie Cheever Jr. - #51 Excite@Home Indy Race Car
84th Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Indy Racing Northern Light Series - Round 4 of 9
Wednesday, May 17, 2000 - Notes and Quotes
Indianapolis, IN - For the second consecutive day, rain showers cut short practice for the 84th running of the Indianapolis 500 scheduled for May 28. #51 Excite@Home driver Eddie Cheever Jr. spent the morning in New York City before returning to a rain-soaked Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the mid-afternoon. As a result, Cheever did not turn any laps in his #51 Excite@Home Infiniti today, the fifth day of practice prior to Pole Qualifying on Saturday, May 20.
Cheever (on Rick Mears, who was honored as a "Legend of the Speedway" today): "Rick drove with the best team with the best history at the Indy 500 - Penske. You'd have to say that it was the best team with the best driver that had the best results. I once had the pleasure of flying with Rick to Australia. I asked him a question about a corner at Indy, and I got some very good insight into how his mind worked. He talked about Turn 1 for over an hour. He has a very in-depth understanding of how this place works. He was extraordinarily fast, and had a very different way of racing than anybody else did. He would kind of just hang there until about the last 20 or 30 laps and by then, he was the one to beat. He was blindingly fast in qualifying and very fast in the last few laps of the race. Rick was a great strategist and it was amazing how he could run a car on an oval."
(On his day): "I flew to New York City today on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway plane with Robbie Buhl, Scott Goodyear, and Sarah Fisher, and we talked to all the ABC affiliates. We got to talk to a lot of nice people and tell them what we're doing. Unfortunately, when I came back to Indy, it started to rain, and that was that. No running for us today."
Primary Sponsorship of the #51 Indy 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 Infiniti, Firestone, Indy Promotional Products, Menards, Bosch, Pennzoil, Sony Disc Manufacturing, and Nancy Flowers Promotions.
Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM) is the leading broadband online service provider, offering residential and commercial broadband services worldwide through the Company's 15,000 mile Internet backbone. The company has a global footprint of 87 million broadband homes under long-term contract. Excite@Home offers consumers broadband services over cable-modem, DSL and wireless connections, and businesses high-speed commercial services with Excite representing the consumer content experience and @Home providing access in local markets through broadband connectivity partners. Excite@Home has approximately 13.5 million cable franchise homes under contract outside of North America and localized versions of the Excite service in 10 leading international markets.
Text provided by Ashleigh Higgins
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