IRL: Cheever third in Texas qualifying

Fort Worth, TX (June 7, 2001) - Eddie Cheever Jr. qualified third for Saturday's Casino Magic 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, matching the highest starting position for the Infiniti Indy 35A engine as well as the best qualifying effort of his Indy Racing League career.

Cheever, who also started third at April's third round of Northern Light Series competition in Atlanta, posted a top speed of 214.926mph (24.3712 seconds) in his Infiniti-powered entry. Cheever's time was less than seven-hundredths of a second behind polesitter Mark Dismore's lap of 24.3054 seconds (215.508 mph), and less than two-hundredths of a second behind second-place qualifier Scott Sharp (24.3554 seconds/215.065mph).

Eddie Cheever Jr. (on his qualifying run): "The Infiniti engine is doing very well. We're very happy with it. We're continuing from where we left off in Atlanta. I think if we understood the electronics a little better, like the Kelley guys did, we would have been even quicker, but I'm very happy with our qualifying effort. It was a good run.

We spent a lot of time after the Indianapolis 500 taking care of small details, and I think we've taken quite a few pounds of drag out of the car. We're looking for reliability from the Infiniti 35A and I think we're in good shape. Cheever Indy Racing had a very tough month of May. We needed to regroup quickly, and there's no time like the present."

-CIR