IRL: Cheever Nashville race notes

Lebanon, TN (July 21, 2001) - Eddie Cheever Jr.'s quest for back-to-back Indy Racing wins came to an unfortunate end on lap 103 of the inaugural Harrah's Indy 200 when the 1998 Indianapolis 500 Champion made contact with Greg Ray in Turn 2 at Nashville Superspeedway.

Cheever, who earned the first win for the Infiniti Indy 35A engine two weeks ago at Kansas Speedway, was running in fifth place at the time of the incident. He was uninjured and was classified fifteenth.

On the incident on lap 103: "I was racing Beechler. I had to take the high side as I was lapping Ray for the third time. I got up beside Ray and all of a sudden my car turned sharp left. We touched. That's all I could tell at the time. Now, having looked at the replay, there was room for him to go lower and room for me to go higher. It's always the car that's passing that has to take responsibility, but I sure wish he had either let me pass on the straightaway or had kept on the bottom line."

-CIR