Track: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Date: Sunday, May 24, 1998
Start time: 12:39 PM CDT
Weather: Overcast, humid, hazy at start; sunny and hot later in race
Serial: #3 of 11 in 1998 season
History: IRL race #3, Indycar race #93 at this track
Config: 2.5-mile rectangular
Wing package: Speedway
The race started late due to early-morning rain and a dog on the track(!), and ended in a major victory for veteran Eddie Cheever. The well-traveled Cheever, who is an American by birth but was raised in Italy and raced in Formula 1 for 12 years, finally erased any doubt about his talent or dedication with this victory. A.J. Foyt put a car on the pole, with Billy Boat up, for the first time since Foyt himself won the pole in 1975. After a start which was jumbled up by rookie J.J. Yeley's spin in turn 1 on the first lap, Boat, one of the IRL's new wave of Sprint and Midget drivers, led early until becoming the first of numerous drivers to be bitten by mysterious transmission and drivetrain problems that plagued the race. This handed the lead to Greg Ray, a Cinderella story whose team had come to Indy so short of money that when a businessman gave the team a $100 bill and a business card, they taped the bill and card to the car's sidepod for a few days until they had to use the money to buy meals. Ray astounded the railbirds by qualifying second and taking the race lead on lap 13, but he too would eventually fall to the transmission gremlins. The Menard team's month was neatly summed up by what happened next: coming down the front straight to complete lap 21, conventional-wisdom favorite Tony Stewart took the lead from Ray -- and immediately his engine blew. (Stewart's teammate Robbie Buhl took a rock through his radiator and had hot water in his cockpit; his engine eventually failed too.) Some tremendous action then ensued, with Kenny Brack, Buddy Lazier, Buzz Calkins, Davey Hamilton, and several others in fairly evenly matched cars contending for positions during rounds of pit stops and the occasional cautions for cars needing a tow-in due to drivetrain problems. The only significant crash of the day occurred on lap 59 when the surprisingly competitive Sam Schmidt appeared to touch wheels with Hamilton in turn 3; he turned into the wall and several other cars promptly piled up after hitting debris. Jim Guthrie took to the warm-up lane to escape but ran over Schmidt's rear wing and got into the grass; his car then shot up the track and hit the wall nearly head on. Guthrie was hospitalized with a broken elbow and a hole in his left leg, but no head injuries -- a vindication for the IRL's 1998 safety improvements. (He might not have been injured had he instead struck the new impact-absorbing "soft wall" installed on the inside of turn 4, the first such safety device ever installed at the Speedway. As it happened, the new barrier went untested on this day.) Seven drivers were involved in the crash, with only Guthrie being injured but all of the others except Marco Greco and Roberto Guerrero were eliminated. (Guerrero was one of several beneficiaries of a new rule which allowed teams to take their cars back to Gasoline Alley for repairs during the race; previously, service had been limited to what could be accomplished in the pits.) Brack, in the other Foyt car, had his shot at the win ended when a pit miscalculation resulted in his running out of fuel on the backstretch on lap 87. The race "settled", as it were, into a duel between Cheever, Lazier, Arie Luyendyk (who had worked his way up from an unusually poor 28th starting position), and the surprise of the day, John Paul Jr., who had come to Indy with another team but lost that ride and was driving for a first-time team with no sponsorship. (The ride had been originally scheduled for the out-of-retirement-again Danny Ongias, but he received a concussion in a practice accident and was not cleared to drive.) Paul dominated the middle portion of the race; Luyendyk had a shot to become the first two-year winner since Al Unser Sr. but his pit stops were slowed by not having first or second gear, and eventually the stress of this fried his clutch during a stop on lap 154. Paul was caught in the pits after a slow stop necessitated by the need to remove a plastic bag from the radiator; he lost a lap when a caution was thrown for Luyendyk's stalled car, and then his clutch failed and he finished the race in fourth gear. Two rookies were making their presence felt; Steve Knapp (cousin of Greg Ray's car owner) and Robby Unser (son of the three-time winner Bobby Unser) stayed with the leaders for most of the last half of the race, Unser doing so despite having no brakes. The brake failure cost Unser a lap when he missed his pit on lap 153, but he remained in contact and eventually achieved a top-5 finish. By lap 180, it was down to Cheever, Lazier, and Knapp. Lazier, the 1996 winner, appeared to have the stronger car at first, but after several laps Cheever began to stretch out a bit of a lead. Cheever had to pass a final test, though; a caution on lap 190 for Greco's blown engine put Lazier back on his tail. The two started 1-2 in line, with no lapped traffic, for a trophy dash starting with the green on lap 193. Cheever promptly drove the best seven laps of his racing life, using every bit of the Brickyard surface, taking corner exits breathtakingly close to the walls (and brushing the wall on one occasion), and simply outrunning the hapless Lazier. It was a fitting ending to the month for Cheever, who had started the month with no sponsorship, qualified poorly, and during the race had just missed the first-lap spin and had flirted with disaster when he tried to leave his pit with the fuel hose still connected during a lap 84 pit stop. Knapp drove a smooth race to third place and Rookie of the Year honors. Hamilton was his usual consistent self in finishing fourth, and Robby Unser added ice cream to Cheever's cake by bringing Eddie's backup car home in fifth (the second time in two years that a rookie driver chosen by Cheever had finished in the top five). As for the other rookies, the Speedway saw an invasion of drivers raised in the bull rings of Salem and Winchester the likes of which had not been seen in over twenty years, and they acquitted themselves well: Yeley, Andy Michner, Jimmy Kite, and Jack Hewitt avoided trouble and all finished in the top 12. Part of the IRL's master plan was to provide new opportunies for the American short-track drivers; judging by the results of this race, it appeared to be working. The month of May was given a new intensity by a reduction of the practice time to one week, and qualifying to two days. There were fewer crashes than in recent years despite the higher speeds and increased number of inexperienced entrants, and the only injuries sustained all month were the Guthrie and Ongias incidents mentioned.
Fin St Qual Car C/E/T Driver Entrant Laps Status Laps Pts
Spd # Led
1 17 217.334 51 D/A/G Eddie Cheever Cheever 200 Running 76 52
2 11 218.288 91 D/A/G Buddy Lazier Hemelgarn 200 Running 20 40
3 23 216.445 55 G/A/G Steve Knapp ISM 200 Running 35
4 8 219.748 6 G/A/G Davey Hamilton Nienhouse 199 Running 3 32
5 21 216.534 52 D/A/G Robby Unser Cheever 198 Running 30
6 3 220.982 14 D/A/G Kenny Brack Foyt 198 Running 23 29
7 16 217.351 81 D/A/F John Paul Jr. Pelphrey 197 Running 39 26
8 19 216.922 17 D/A/G Andy Michner Syan 197 Running 24
9 13 218.044 45 D/A/F J. J. Yeley Sinden 197 Running 22
10 18 217.197 12 G/A/G Buzz Calkins Bradley 195 Running 4 20
11 26 219.290 7 D/A/G Jimmy Kite Scandia 195 Running 19
12 22 216.450 18 G/A/G Jack Hewitt PDM 195 Running 18
13 27 219.086 35 G/A/G Jeff Ward ISM 194 Running 17
14 14 217.953 16 G/A/F Marco Greco Phoenix 183 Engine 16
15 32 216.704 10 G/A/F Mike Groff Byrd-C'Ham 183 Running 15
16 7 219.910 8 D/A/G Scott Sharp Kelley 181 Gearbox 14
17 31 217.036 77 G/A/G Stephan Gregoire Chastain 172 Running 13
18 2 221.125 97 D/A/F Greg Ray Knapp 167 Gearbox 18 14
19 30 217.303 30 G/A/G Raul Boesel McCormack 164 Running 11
20 28 218.935 5 G/A/F Arie Luyendyk Treadway 151 Clutch 4 10
21 15 217.800 40 D/I/F Jack Miller Sinden 128 Running 9
22 9 218.900 21 D/A/G Roberto Guerrero Pagan 125 Running 8
23 1 223.503 11 D/A/G Billy Boat Foyt 111 Final Drive 12 10
24 10 218.357 4 G/A/G Scott Goodyear Panther 100 Clutch 6
25 25 216.316 9 D/A/G Johnny Unser Hemelgarn 98 Engine 5
26 6 219.982 99 D/A/F Sam Schmidt LP 48 Crash T3 4
27 12 218.096 28 D/A/G Mark Dismore Kelley 48 Crash T3 3
28 29 217.477 19 R/A/G Stan Wattles Metro 48 Crash T3 2
29 20 216.604 35 G/A/G Jim Guthrie ISM 48 Crash T3 1
30 33 217.835 33 D/A/G Billy Roe Scandia 48 Crash T3 1
31 5 220.236 3 D/A/F Robbie Buhl Menard 44 Overheating 1
32 24 216.357 98 G/A/F Donnie Beechler Cahill 34 Engine 1
33 4 220.386 1 D/A/F Tony Stewart Menard 22 Engine 1 1
Laps under green: 152 of 200 laps (76.0%)
Caution flags: 12 for 48 laps (24.0%)
#1: lap 1, spin (Yeley), T1, 2 laps
#2: lap 22, blown engine (Stewart), T1, 4 laps
[during caution: crash (Gregoire, Ward), pit lane]
#3: lap 34, blown engine (Beechler), T1, 4 laps
#4: lap 47, blown engine (Buhl), T2, 3 laps
#5: lap 59, crash (Dismore, Greco, Guerrero, Guthrie, Roe, Schmidt, Wattles),
T3, 14 laps
#6: lap 96, stalled car (Kite), T3, 3 laps
#7: lap 122, stalled car (Miller), BS, 5 laps
#8: lap 132, stalled car (Boat), T2, 2 laps
#9: lap 153, stalled car (Luyendyk), T1, 3 laps
#10: lap 176, crash (Gregoire), T4, 3 laps
#11: lap 180, spin (Hewitt), T1, 2 laps
#12: lap 191, blown engine (Greco), BS, 3 laps
Red flags: 0 for 0 minutes
Lead changes: 23
St: Boat 1-12
#1: Ray 13-20
#2: Stewart 21
#3: Ray 22-31
#4: Brack 32-46
#5: Calkins 47-50
#6: Lazier 51-61
#7: Brack 62-67
#8: Cheever 68-84
#9: Luyendyk 85
#10: Brack 86-87
#11: Lazier 88-93
#12: Cheever 94-97
#13: Paul 98-113
#14: Hamilton 114-116
#15: Cheever 117-122
#16: Lazier 123
#17: Paul 124-146
#18: Luyendyk 147-149
#19: Cheever 150-153
#20: Lazier 154
#21: Cheever 155-176
#22: Lazier 177
#23: Cheever 178-200
C/E/T finish averages (# started / avg finish):
Dallara: 19 / 16.9
G-Force: 13 / 16.3
Riley & Scott: 1 / 28.0
Aurora: 32 / 15.8
Infiniti: 1 / 21.0
Firestone: 11 / 20.5
Goodyear: 22 / 15.2