Cheever Racing

Cheever Racing was an auto racing team founded in 1996 by Eddie Cheever as Team Cheever in the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series. They fielded a car for Cheever for much of its existence, but occasionally ran two cars, almost always for the Indianapolis 500. The team won the 1998 Indianapolis 500 with Cheever driving and then switched to Infiniti engines and gained sponsorship from Excite for 2000. The team continued to be moderately successful and gained Infiniti's first series win. When Infiniti left the series in 2003 the team, which by then was sponsored by Red Bull switched to Chevrolet engines and then switched to Toyota in 2005, after Chevrolet's departure. Despite some of the most talented drivers in the league, a long string of bad luck and underpowered engines rendered the team little more than mid-pack. With no sponsor for the 2006 season, Eddie decided to trim the team to a single car and return to the cockpit as both a cost-cutting move and to seize the opportunity to return to racing before he felt he got too old to be competitive. Cheever only committed to drive until the Indianapolis 500 but continued until the 8th race of the season. The IRL operation shut down after the Kansas Speedway race when it could not find a sponsor or pay driver to continue.

Cheever Racing also ran a Daytona Prototype car in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series. In 2007 Cheever purchased the intellectual property rights to the Fabcar chassis and has renewed its development and begun offering the chassis to other teams in the series. The car was subsequently renamed the Coyote chassis, in tribute to the racing cars built in the 1970s by A. J. Foyt Enterprises. Cheever Racing did not field any entries for the 2009 Rolex 24 at Daytona. The previous sponsor Crown Royal now is sponsoring the entry from Penske Racing.[1]

In 2006, Cheever also founded an Indy Pro Series team. In 2006 its car was driven by Chris Festa. Their driver for the 2007 season was Richard Antinucci, Eddie's nephew, who captured two wins on a part-time schedule.

Drivers who have driven for Cheever

IRL IndyCar Series

• Alex Barron (2003–2005)
• Ed Carpenter (2004)
• Patrick Carpentier (2005)
• Eddie Cheever (1996–2002, 2006)
• Tomáš Enge (2006)
• Wim Eyckmans (1999)
• Scott Goodyear (2001)
• Robby McGehee (2002)
• Max Papis (2002, 2006)
• Buddy Rice (2002–2003)
• Tomas Scheckter (2002)
• Robby Unser (1998)
• Jeff Ward (1997)

Indy Pro Series

• Richard Antinucci (2007)
• Chris Festa (2006)

Grand Am

• Fabio Babini (2008)
• Matteo Bobbi (2008)
• Harrison Brix (2007)
• Patrick Carpentier (2006)
• Eddie Cheever (2006–2007)
• Emmanuel Collard (2007)
• Tommy Erdos (2007–2008)
• Christian Fittipaldi (2006–2008)
• Antonio García (2008)
• Stefan Johansson (2006)
• Tom Kimber-Smith (2008)
• Lucas Luhr (2006)
• Sascha Maassen (2007)
• Scott Mayer(2008)
• Mike Newton (2007–2008)
• Hoover Orsi (2006)
• Stephane Ortelli (2008)
• Brent Sherman (2008)

Racing results

Complete IRL IndyCar Series results

(key)

Year	Chassis	Engine	Drivers	No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
1996–1997	Lola T95/00	Menard V6t			NHA	LSV	WDW	PHX	INDY	TXS	PPIR	CLT	NHA	LSV
			Eddie Cheever	51	15	25
	G-Force GF01	Oldsmobile Aurora V8					1	12	23	6	4	6	9*	21
			Jeff Ward	52					3
1998	Dallara IR8	Oldsmobile Aurora V8			WDW	PHX	INDY	TXS	NHA	DOV	CLT	PPIR	ATL	TXS	LSV
			Eddie Cheever	51	24	10	1*	26	9	16	20	8	3	25	5
			Robby Unser	52					11
	G-Force GF01B						5	9		11		12	16	2	16
1999	Dallara IR9	Oldsmobile Aurora V8			WDW	PHX	INDY	TXS	PPIR	ATL	DOV	PPIR	LSV	TXS
			Eddie Cheever	51	1	17
		Infiniti VRH35ADE V8					18	16	4	6	21	11	17	4
		Oldsmobile Aurora V8	Wim Eyckmans	52			23
2000	Riley & Scott Mk V	Infiniti VRH35ADE V8			WDW	PHX	LSV	INDY	TXS	PPIR	ATL	KTY	TXS
			Eddie Cheever	51	3	10
	Dallara IR-00						11	5	9	1	21	4	2
			Ross Cheever	52				DNQ
2001	Dallara IR-01	Infiniti VRH35ADE V8			PHX	HMS	ATL	INDY	TXS	PPIR	RIR	KAN	NSH	KTY	GAT	CHI	TXS
			Eddie Cheever	51	19	9	24	26	12	6	13	1*	15	21	4	3	18
			Scott Goodyear	52				32
2002	Dallara IR-02	Infiniti VRH35ADE V8			HMS	PHX	FON	NAZ	INDY	TXS	PPIR	RIR	KAN	NSH	MCH	KTY	GAT	CHI	TXS
			Eddie Cheever	51	25	15	20	7	5	19	8	14	16	6	22	11	10	5	8
			Tomas Scheckter	52	6	24	24	21	26*	17*	16	4	15*	13	1*	22	Wth
			Buddy Rice														4	9	6
				53											2	12
			Max Papis						23
			Robby McGehee																13
2003	Dallara IR-03	Chevrolet Indy V8			HMS	PHX	MOT	INDY	TXS	PPIR	RIR	KAN	NSH	MCH	GAT	KTY	NAZ	CHI	FON	TXS
			Buddy Rice	52	16	9	13	11	14	9	9	19	18	11	14	11	10
			Alex Barron															7	10	20
2004	Dallara IR-04	Chevrolet Indy V8			HMS	PHX	MOT	INDY	TXS	RIR	KAN	NSH	MIL	MCH	KTY	PPIR	NAZ	CHI	FON	TXS
			Alex Barron	51	16	4	12	12	3	22	10	17	7	11	11	10	12	12	18	14
			Ed Carpenter	52	12	19	22	31	21	16	14	22	11	14	8	11	20	11	12	21
2005	Dallara IR-05	Toyota Indy V8			HMS	PHX	STP	MOT	INDY	TXS	RIR	KAN	NSH	MIL	MCH	KTY	PPIR	SNM	CHI	WGL	FON
			Alex Barron	51	8	13	10	19	13	14	6	13	15	8	11	4	18	3	21	17	14
			Patrick Carpentier	83	7	9	8	13	21	16	3	14	3	7	9	12	10	4	9	10	15
2006	Dallara IR-05	Honda HI6R V8			HMS	STP	MOT	INDY	WGL	TXS	RIR	KAN	NSH	MIL	MCH	KTY	SNM	CHI
			Eddie Cheever	51	10	11		13	17	17	14	14
			Tomáš Enge				19
			Max Papis	52				14