Talking with the Grand Prix Greats

When he competed in his first Formula One race, Eddie Cheever was even more baby-faced than when I got to know him, which is saying something. It was the 1978 South African Grand Prix and Eddie, who looked about 16 at the time, had actually just turned 20. He qualified Lord Hesketh’s valiant Ford-powered car into second to last place on the grid at Kyalami, but went out after eight laps with engine trouble. Since then, he has seldom been far away from single-seaters in a career that culminated in his 1998 Indianapolis 500 victory in his own Team Cheever car, the realization of a boyhood dream.

I was introduced to Eddie in 1979 by our mutual friend Nigel Wollheim, a remarkable man who spoke at least six languages fluently, and I mean fluently. Digressing for an instant, I once saw Nigel hold an impromptu on his company’s products with a dozen foreign journalists in a field somewhere in Greece during the world championship Acropolis Rally, deftly answering complicated questions in perfect English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Greek!