Journeyman, also ran.
Eddie Cheever won't have to worry about those names anymore.He's got a new one - Indianapolis 500 champion.
Clearly, he'll need some time to get used to it.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to say," Cheever told the cheering crowd Sunday in Victory Lane after stepping out of the Dallara-Aurora car he also owns.
It was not an easy race to win.
He narrowly avoided a first-lap accident, then overcame a pit mistake at midrace. In the end, he held off a pesky Buddy Lazier to earn the biggest victory of his life.
"I had about 15 guardian angels with me. I had a couple of close calls and I came out of them OK," the 40-year-old winner said.
Cheever has only won once before, in an Indy car race in January 1997. He happened to take the lead after another driver crashed -one lap before rain ended the race.
This time he really earned it, coming perilously close to the wall several times in the last 10 laps.
"I was either going to win or not finish at all," Cheever said. "My father told me, `If you're going to win one race in your life, win Indy.' "
Actually, his day almost ended on the first turn of the race."Somebody bumped me in the rear and turned me sideways," Cheever said. "I thought, `I don't want it to end this way."
His next big problem came during a pit stop on lap 85 when the nozzle from the fuel hose stuck in his car and he nearly pulled away with it still attached.
"We got back on our game plan and Eddie used his experience all day. He was on his game," crew chief Owen Snyder explained.
Cheever's victory was also a triumph for Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George, who started the Indy Racing League in 1996 with the idea of giving second-tier teams and drivers a chance.
Cheever, who took his victory lap around the 21/2-mile oval with George at his side, definitely falls into that category. His main sponsor is a small potato chip company that signed on two weeks ago.
The Indy 500 rookie of the year in 1990 came within a few laps of victory at Indy last year - his first 500 as an owner.
Cheever finished 23rd and also owned the car Jeff Ward drove to third place. Ward was leading in the closing laps but had to stop for fuel and was overtaken by winner Arie Luyendyk.
On Sunday, Cheever's teammate was rookie Robby Unser, who finished fifth.
Cheever, who started 17th in the 33-car field, is expected to take more than $1.5 million from the nearly $9 million purse when it is presented Monday night at the annual victory dinner. He is the first owner-driver to win since A.J. Foyt in 1977.
Cheever pulled away from Lazier, the 1996 Indy winner, after the 12th and final caution period, racing off to a 3.l91-second win - about a third of the last straightaway.
"At the start of the race we really went down," Lazier said. "We had to make an unscheduled pit stop, but my guys never lost heart. They pushed hard, got me back into contention. We just didn't have enough for Eddie."
The race began 40 minutes late because of early morning rain and was almost immediately under caution when J.J. Yeley spun in turn one, but somehow avoided the wall. The 21-year-old stalled the engine and had to be towed, but came back to finish ninth. He was one of four rookies in the top 10.
Tony Stewart, the 27-year-old Indy Racing League champion and the favorite to win his first Indy 500, started fourth and got to the lead on lap 21, passing surprising front-row starter Greg Ray.
But the lead lasted only seconds as smoke and fire billowed from Stewart's vaunted Team Menard Dallara-Aurora as he sped toward the first turn on lap 22. The disgusted Stewart stopped at the exit of turn one, yanked his steering wheel from its stem, scrambled from the car, stripped off his gloves and pitched them into the empty cockpit.
He then turned to the packed grandstand and raised his arms high in the air in a gesture of frustration.
Ray was no luckier than Stewart, going out while leading on lap 32 when his transmission broke.
Transmission problems also finished two-time winner Luyendyk.
He lost first gear early in the race and had to be pushed out of the pits after each stop. He was leading on lap 150 when he made a routine stop, but then he stalled on his way back to the track, done for the day.
"The clutch was a problem all day," said Luyendyk, who was trying to become the first repeat winner since Al Unser in 1970-71. "It really hurt me on the restarts."
The biggest accident of the day came on lap 50 when rookie Sam Schmidt got his left-side wheels into the third-turn grass and spun into the outside retaining wall. Mark Dismore and Stan Wattles tried to slow behind him, but got together and slid into the wall, too. Jim Guthrie then ran through the grass, over a piece of debris from Schmidt's car and skidded almost head-on into the wall.
Guthrie was in good condition at Methodist Hospital after undergoing surgery for a broken right arm.
Steve Knapp, another of the eight first-year Indy starters, finished third, the only other driver on the lead lap. He was followed by Davey Hamilton, Unser and front-row starter Kenny Brack.
Brack was in contention until he ran out of fuel and had to coast slowly from the backstretch to the pits on lap 88.
Pole-starter Billy Boat, Brack's Foyt Racing teammate, had gearbox problems and wound up out of the race after 104 laps.
Cheever, who led 76 of the 200 laps, took the lead for the final time on lap 178 when he beat Lazier off pit road after the leaders made their final fuel stops.
Following the restart on lap 183, Cheever moved off to a lead of more than three seconds, turning his fastest laps of the day at more than 213 mph. But Marco Greco's blown engine on lap 191 gave Lazier one more shot at Cheever.
It wasn't enough. Cheever steadily pulled away after the green flag waved for the start of lap 195.
The winner averaged 145.155 mph in the race that lasted 3 hours, 26 minutes, 40.424 seconds.
Cheever, who was born in Phoenix and raised in Italy, began his career as a road racer in Formula 3000 and Formula One.
Indy's oval was something else.
"The first time I came to this place it terrorized me. I wanted to go home."
Now he can. As an Indy winner.