|| *Comments on the 1998 Indianapolis 500:* View the most recent comment <#32> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. Darrell posted: 01.31.2009 - 3:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Failed to qualify: Eliseo Salazar (#15), Claude Bourbonnais (#27), Joe Gosek (#29), Hideshi Matsuda (#54), Scott Harrington (#66), Dan Drinan (#24), Paul Durant (#23T), Lyn St. James (#90) 2. Smoke14TS posted: 01.31.2009 - 11:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was my first race as a Tony Stewart fan, I'd become a fan that month. His interview after his motor blew (one lap after taking the lead) was the first time my mother saw him. Needless to say she didn't want her little boy pulling for Tony Stewart anymore but I sure showed her. 3. Indycar1 posted: 02.01.2009 - 10:49 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Eddie Cheever Wins his only Indy 500, in his ninth start. Steve Knapp lead a group of four Rookies that finished in the Top 10 the others being: Robby Unser (5th), Andy Michner (8th), and J.J. Yeley (9th). Jim Guthrie had a nasty hit into the wall in a seven car wreck in turn 3 on lap 48. 4. RaceFanX posted: 02.01.2009 - 2:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Eddie Cheever's biggest career win Last time Buzz Calkins led an IRL race 5. Pacer posted: 04.21.2009 - 5:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The pace car for this Indy 500 was a Chevrolet Corvette Convertible. 6. Unser1 posted: 05.22.2009 - 12:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cheever almost crashed out on the first lap. Going into turn 1 he got involved in the incident that saw J.J. Yeley spin. Yeley got the worst of it but neither Cheever nor Yeley hit anything and both contuined in the race. Cheever's sponsorship from Rachel's Gourmet Potato Chips was an 11th hour deal. Tony Stewart blew his motor while leading just after taking the lead. He immediately fell from 1st place to last. 7. Pacer posted: 01.13.2010 - 7:34 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jack Hewitt's IRL debut and best finish in 12th 8. Chris posted: 03.03.2010 - 10:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) My first IRL race! 9. Anonymous posted: 05.11.2010 - 2:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Amazingly, four years later the motor shut Stewart off so sudden at the Daytona 500. 10. penskefan posted: 10.03.2010 - 11:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I believe Danny Ongais attempted to qualify for this race, but he crashed on his run, which ended the Flying Hawaiians run at the brickyard 11. Madison posted: 12.29.2010 - 4:30 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) JJ Yeley rallys from a first lap spin to finish 9th. 12. RaceFanX posted: 09.18.2011 - 4:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Failed to Qualify #10 Brian Tyler- Jonathan Byrd's / Visionaire / Bryant H & C (Byrd-Cunningham Racing) G/A/F #15 Eliseo Salazar- Reebok / MK V (Bob Riley / Mark Scott) R/A/G #20 Tyce Carlson- Keco (Immke Racing) D/A/G #27 Claude Bourbonnais- Klipsch / Ocean Spray (Blueprint Racing) D/O/F #24 Dan Drinan- D.B. Mann Development D/O/G #81 Danny Ongais- Team Pelfrey (Team Pelfrey) D/A/F #23 Paul Durant- CBR Cobb Racing G/O #29 Joe Gosek- Liberty Racing G/O #54 Hideshi Matsuda- Beck Motorsports D/I #66 Scott Harrington- LP Racing D/O #68 Jaques Lazier- CBR Cobb Racing G/O #90 Lyn St. James- Lifetime TV For Women G/I 13. RaceFanX posted: 05.26.2012 - 4:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Car change: J.J. Yeley drove car #44 not #45. It was sponsored by One Call / Quaker State / Menards. 14. Nathan Milliron posted: 05.27.2012 - 9:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Also, first time cars were allowed to return to the race after being pushed back into Gasoline Alley. Raul BOesel and Greg Ray can attest to this, ditto Guerrero and Dr. Jack. 15. We need more Onion posted: 07.19.2013 - 8:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jim Guthrie run #53, not #55, this is correct in the caution summary. Sponsor for John Paul Jr. was Klipsch. 16. Rexrobe posted: 04.01.2014 - 2:02 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Owner info for the DNQ's: J. Lazier - Price Cobb Harrington - Larry Nash Matsuda - Greg Beck Gosek - Mike Deer Durant - Price Cobb Drinan - D.B. Mann St. James - Ron Hemelgarn 17. FortiFord posted: 11.16.2015 - 2:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Attendance: 250 000 18. Jolly Mean Giant posted: 08.31.2016 - 12:52 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) First Indy 500 starts for Steve Knapp, Robby Unser, Jimmy Kite, Stan Wattles, and Donnie Beechler. Only Indy 500 starts for Andy Michner, J. J. Yeley, and Jack Hewitt. Last Indy 500 starts for John Paul, Jr., Marco Greco, Mike Groff, Jim Guthrie, and Billy Roe. 19. We need more Onion posted: 03.29.2017 - 3:16 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Buzz Calkins finishes 10th to record his best Indy 500 result and with that is the worst of the IRL/IndyCar champions at the great race. All the other champions have at least an 8th. 20. JSPorts posted: 03.29.2017 - 4:43 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That's crazy to think that he never finished better than 10th. Though he did only start 7 Indy 500s. 21. We need more Onion posted: 03.29.2017 - 4:54 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Has since continued looking them up... Calkins is the only American Open Wheel champion to have not finished at least 8th in the 500. That includes every single champion of AAA, USAC, CART, IRL and IndyCar from Barney Oldfield to Simon Pagenaud (who is one of those whose best is 8th). This obviously excludes George Robertson (unofficial 1909 champion), da Matta and Zanardi, who never started the 500. 22. JSPorts posted: 03.29.2017 - 5:43 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) I would also argue that Calkins is one of the weakest champions in American open-wheel history, as he was a co-champion in a season that only had 3 races. 23. Sean posted: 03.29.2017 - 6:32 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) It's either Buzz Calkins or George Snider. Both of them won only a single race against a split field when the real talent was in CART. Yeah, a couple of the guys who won only the Indy 500 and won the championship by default because the Indy 500 made up about 80% of the championship points in those years like Louis Schneider and Floyd Roberts weren't huge standouts either, but I think pretty much EVERY Indy 500 winner, even the worst ones, would beat Calkins and Snider. I can see people taking a swipe at Greg Ray, who is probably the third worst (although maybe better than Schneider and Roberts) because of Ray's 6 Indy 500 crashes from 1999-2002, which is truly appalling, but Ray did still beat Kenny Brack in points in 1999 when Tony Stewart failed to do so in the same cars the previous year, which at least says SOMETHING for Ray. I'm actually surprised since Ray DNFed in all his starts that he actually got an 8th. I thought his best was lower than that, and I thought Snider's best was 9th. Regardless, all three of those guys would probably be in the bottom five. 24. Sean posted: 03.29.2017 - 6:34 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Ray DNFed in ALMOST* all his starts. Sorry. 25. Damon posted: 03.29.2017 - 6:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "I can see people taking a swipe at Greg Ray, who is probably the third worst (although maybe better than Schneider and Roberts) because of Ray's 6 Indy 500 crashes from 1999-2002" In fairness to Greg, he did start on the front row and lead laps in four straight 500's. If nothing else, he was entertaining. 26. Sean posted: 03.29.2017 - 9:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I liked Ray. I still like Ray. Still, he wouldn't have been anything resembling a championship contender had he been competing against a full unsplit field. I think his talent was basically equivalent to Tomas Scheckter (whose prime came in a slightly deeper 2002-2005 IRL) or Alex Tagliani or Townsend Bell. All four of those drivers were always fast, but had a history of not getting the results to match their pace... I think I'd go easier on Ray than Scheckter or Tagliani though, because they got many, many more chances while Ray was already back to driving for an underfunded owner-driver operation a mere four years after their championship...and strangely posting more consistent if less dominant results. 27. The Great Dave posted: 03.30.2017 - 12:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) "It's either Buzz Calkins or George Snider." Buzz Calkins by miles. They both won due to gimmicky schedules due to CART having an advantage with driving talent. But Snider was always a good Dirt track driver and he still had to beat out the likes of Rich Vogler, Tom Bigelow and Gary Bettenhausen, where as Calkins was a Medicore development series driver, who really only had competition from a Trans-Am driver, a Washed up F1 racer, and Richie Hearn. 28. Sean posted: 03.31.2017 - 7:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I guess the question is if you really count that 1981 sprint car race as an IndyCar race or not. IndyCars in CART had already moved towards ground-effect style formula cars more resembling F1 cars, and sprint cars were already uncompetitive in the regular races. I'll grant that Snider was a really good sprint car driver competing against some other really good sprint car drivers, but counting that race in entirely different equipment from the regular races at the time is pretty apples & oranges. I kind of view that race similarly to the Long Beach 2008 Champ Car race after Champ Car folded where that single race ended up being a bizarre one-off with completely different equipment exclusively in that race. I'm not sure winning a sprint car race against a bunch of other sprint car drivers, few of whom were anything resembling INDYCAR stars (sure, Gary Bettenhausen and Jim McElreath, but they were several years past their brief periods of greatness), counts for much. From a sprint car perspective, that field was better, but from an IndyCar perspective, I'm more willing to give credit to IRL 1996, since they were at least running CART-compatible that season. "really only had competition from a Trans-Am driver, a Washed up F1 racer, and Richie Hearn." Who's the washed up F1 driver? Cheever? Guerrero? Alboreto? There were THREE who might fit the bill in that field. Buddy Lazier won the pole and wasn't dismissable and you didn't mention him, and how could you not list Luyendyk and Stewart as significant challengers to Calkins? Also, Calkins PASSED Stewart for the lead and the win in that race, while Snider seems to have inherited the lead after another driver's DNF in a race only 6 cars finished. No disagreement that Snider was a way better driver in sprint cars than Calkins won in anything. That is beyond dispute. I just don't think there's really any difference from an IndyCar perspective, but I'd PROBABLY still pick Calkins too. I think the few good drivers in both races (McElreath, Hewitt, Vogler, Bigelow, Schrader, Vukovich, Bettenhausen) vs. (Luyendyk, Lazier, Stewart, Cheever, Alboreto, Guerrero, Sharp) largely cancel out but your mileage may vary. 29. NewGuyOnTheBlock posted: 09.02.2017 - 2:16 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Roberto Guerrero in the 21 should be listed as involved in the multi-car crash on lap 49. 30. RaceFanX posted: 05.23.2019 - 9:09 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) There was total domination by the Oldsmobile Aurora engine at this running of the 500 with the GM branded motors representing 32 of the 33 starters. Only "The Racing Dentist" Dr. Jack Miller was able to get one of the Nissan Infiniti-engined cars into the field and he was a nonreactor coming home 21st. Several other cars came to Indy using the Infiniti engine but they either switched to Auroras for the race or failed to qualify. Lyn St. James and Hideshi Matsuda were among those who tried to make it into the show with the motors but missed the field of 33. 31. SweetRich posted: 02.26.2020 - 10:12 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Commentators For The Race Were Paul Page And Tom Sneva. The Pit Road Reporters Were Jerry Punch, Jack Arute And Gary Gerould. 32. MSportRev posted: 02.26.2020 - 11:07 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) DNQ Updates: 34. Eliseo Salazar in a Riley & Scott/Oldsmobile 35. Claude Bourbonnais in a Dallara/Oldsmobile Paul Durany, Brian Tyler, and Joe Gosek were in a G Force/Oldsmobile Dan Drinan, Danny Ongais, Tyce Carlson, and Scott Harrington were in a Dallara/Oldsmobile Hideshi Matsuda was in a Dallara/Infiniti Lyn St. James was in a G Force/Infiniti Source: Ultimate Racing History ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: