IRL: Gateway: Cheever Racing qualifying report

Red Bull's Rice qualifies 15th at Gateway; Cheever 18th.

Gateway International Raceway's unique 1.25-mile oval proved to be a challenge for the Red Bull Cheever Racing team in qualifying today for the Gateway Indy 250.

In his third IRL appearance Buddy Rice qualified 15th at 171.883 mph - a disappointing result after qualifying second at Michigan and sixth at Kentucky. Cheever was equally disappointed with a 171.436 mph lap which places him 18th on the starting grid.

The team fared better in practice spending a substantial amount of time on full-tank testing. Rice was tenth fastest at 172.674 mph, and Cheever 14th fastest at 171.162 mph, in the practice session just before qualifying.

Eddie Cheever Jr. on Qualifying:
"The balance was too loose. We're not sure why, but we suffer at these sort of tracks. (How has Tomas' departure impacted the team?) It hasn't impacted us at all. We are continuing to run two cars as we have all season. We knew coming in that this is a difficult track for us. Buddy is doing very well. He has been very conscientious in his job. In two races with us he has brought it home both times. We have completed several full-tanks run here so I expect tomorrow to be a better day for us."

Buddy Rice on Qualifying:
"We thought we had a pretty good car for qualifying. I drove into turn one on the second lap thinking it would be a pretty good one and the car was too low. It tapped the floor a couple times and got sideways, so we lost all of our speed. We just weren't able to make it up after that on this tight oval. We've got a real solid race car. We've already done two full-tank runs with the car. We'll see how tomorrow goes and stay out of trouble and make it to the end."

Cheever Retires Helmet Design
After 31 years of racing Eddie Cheever Jr. is retiring the helmet design he created with his father at age 13. Cheever will wear a black helmet in the Gateway Indy 250 in mourning for his father, Ed Cheever, who died Aug. 15 at age 74. "My father was my hero," said Cheever.

Race Information
The Gateway Indy 250 starts at 2 p.m. (CDT) Sunday, Aug. 25. The race will be televised live on ESPN and by the Indy Racing Radio Network. Live timing and scoring of all on-track activity can be found on www.indyracing.com.

Red Bull Cheever Racing, based in Indianapolis, is the brainchild of 1998 Indy 500 champion Eddie Cheever Jr. A leader in American motorsports, the Indy Racing League team is built on Cheever's experience in Formula One, sports cars and open-wheel oval racing. Corporate and technical partnerships with the world's leading energy drink Red Bull, Nissan North America's Infiniti Division, TWR Group, and Lincoln Financial Group greatly enhance the team's resources and technology. For more information, visit www.cheeverindyracing.com.

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