Ok apparently Buddy wasn't fired and is just sitting on the sideline for a few races as Alex tries to figure out what's wrong with the car and how to fix them.
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Cheever chooses Barron over Rice
Motorsports
Sept. 5, 2003 12:00 AM
Super sub Alex Barron has found a new home, this time at the expense of Buddy Rice of Phoenix.
Team owner Eddie Cheever Jr., who like Rice is a native Phoenician, has replaced Rice with Barron beginning with Sunday's Indy Racing League stop at Chicagoland Speedway.
Although Rice received the news a couple of days ago, word didn't leak until Thursday.
"I still haven't talked to Eddie," Rice said in a telephone interview from the Joliet, Ill., racetrack. "The team manager (Max Jones) told me. But it's Eddie's deal. He's the boss and makes the decisions he wants to make in the best interest of the team. It doesn't matter what I think. It's Eddie's decision."
Cheever said he decided to make the change after he returned to the driver's seat last week in a test at Chicagoland.
"After testing the car, I expected it to be a lot worse than it was," said Cheever, who retired from driving last season. "It (the test) told me that we're not that far away, but that it was also important we started honing in on what the problem is so we can make some constructive changes."
The changes included hiring Barron, who has made seven starts this season as a replacement for injured drivers Gil de Ferran and Felipe Giaffone. Barron, 33, won the July race in Michigan and became available again when Giaffone was medically cleared to return to the driver's seat this week.
"We've struggled the last few races with this new engine package, and we're trying to get back on top again," Cheever said. "It's not a negative connotation toward Buddy. We just needed to make a change to figure out where the problems lie.
"We've been very uncompetitive, but we have the equipment that has won races this season. We just weren't making any progress, and we need to make a change to give us some new direction."
Rice, 26, is 12th in the drivers standings and has a season's best finish of ninth in 13 of 16 scheduled starts. Rice also hasn't led any laps this season.
Rice, however, is not entirely to blame.
Like all the Chevrolet teams this season, Cheever's struggled early because the Chevy engine wasn't producing enough horsepower to battle the Toyota and Honda powerplants. But a new generation of IV Chevy motor recently became available, and Chevy driver Sam Hornish Jr. already has won a race with it.
Rice has finishes of 14th, 11th and 10th since taking delivery of the new engine, finishes that eventually became unacceptable to Cheever.
"I am utterly convinced that when you put Buddy in the car, he's still as fast as anybody," Cheever said. "He's proven he doesn't crash. We're just off the pace, and we need to find a way to get back on pace. I hope Buddy considers this just part of his learning process.
"He's not fired. He's still under contract for this year and next year, and he'll still be with us for Sunday's race (at Chicagoland). We've just failed to get the most out of this equipment, and we had an opportunity to make a change for a driver with a few more years of experience. We have to find a way to right the ship.
"Buddy is at the beginning of his career, and I'm sure he's not happy about this. I wouldn't expect him to be happy. But when things don't improve, you have to make changes."
Ironically, Rice was hired late last season to help bring stability to a team that had been foundering due to a large number of crashes involving former Cheever driver Tomas Scheckter, who reacted angrily to Cheever's public criticism and eventually departed the team before season's end.
Rice made an immediate impact, finishing runner-up to Scheckter at Michigan in his debut. Rice concluded the season with three more top-10 finishes in four starts and seemed on a road to even better finishes in 2003.
"I have no idea if I'm out just for this race or what," Rice said. "But I'm contracted to be at the races and I'll be there."
Cheever also wasn't specific when asked if Barron's hiring would continue through the last three races.
"We'll worry about that after this weekend," Cheever said. "But we have to make something of this season."
This is kinda of confusing. It seems like from what Cheever is saying he believes Buddy doesn't know what needs to be changed on the car to make it go fast, which to me says he doesn't think Buddy's that good. All the articles I read prior to today seemed to hint at the same thing and seemed to indicate Rice was gone by the way they were phrased. Eddie also said he determined a change needed to be made after he tested at Chicagoland, so obviously Eddie did a lot better than Buddy.
