2001 Casino Magic 500

Eddie Cheever Jr. ( Team Cheever)
Time	23.951 (on lap 177 of 200)
Podium
First	Scott Sharp ( Kelley Racing)
Second	Felipe Giaffone ( Treadway Racing)
Third	Sam Hornish Jr. ( Panther Racing)

The 2001 Casino Magic 500 was the 5th round of the

2001 Indy Racing League season. It took place on June 9, 2001 at Texas Motor Speedway

.

Qualifying

Indy Racing League career, qualified on pole with a speed of 215.508 mph. His teammate Scott Sharp

started alongside him on the first row.

Race

Lap 1 - Lap 78

At the end of lap 1,

Didier Andre and Eliseo Salazar

.

The restart came at lap 89. Some laps later, Airton Daré suffered an engine problem, bring out the race's third caution. Daré would spend considerable amount of time behind the wall, but would rejoin the race some 55 laps behind the leader. Racing resumed on lap 116.

Closing Stages: Last 44 laps

With 44 laps to go, caution once again came out for debris. The restart came with 40 laps to go, with Scott Sharp leading the field. With 27 laps to go, Eddie Cheever tried a three-wide pass with Greg Ray and Sharp, but ran out of room and was forced to back out, allowing Jeff Ward to take third. Bearing issues brought an end to Ward's run, though, and brought out another caution. The restart came with 12 laps to go with Scott Sharp still leading the field. With 11 laps to go, Cheever, Sharp and Ray battled for the lead, with Ray emerging the leader. However, with 5 laps to go, the leaders came up on Robby McGehee on the back stretch. Ray attempted to dive to the inside of McGehee to lap him, but made contact, causing both cars to spin and sending McGehee into the path of Cheever. All three cars retired and Sharp inherited the lead. With the track unable to be cleared for a green flag finish, Scott Sharp took victory under caution conditions.

Final results

Pos	No.	Driver	Team	Engine	Chassis	Laps	Time/Retired ¹	Grid	Laps Led	Pts.
1	8	Scott Sharp	Kelley Racing	Oldsmobile	Dallara	200	1:55:44	2	33	50
2	21	Felipe Giaffone R	Treadway/Hubbard Racing	Oldsmobile	G-Force	200	+0.7133	14	1	40
3	4	Sam Hornish Jr.	Panther Racing	Oldsmobile	Dallara	200	+2.3620	4	5	35
4	91	Buddy Lazier	Hemelgarn Racing	Oldsmobile	Dallara	200	+3.6312	13		32
5	98	Billy Boat	Beck Motorsports	Oldsmobile	Dallara	200	+4.1950	10		30
6	11	Donnie Beechler	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	Oldsmobile	Dallara	200	+4.9098	6		28
7	14	Eliseo Salazar	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	Oldsmobile	Dallara	200	+6.0578	9		26
8	3	Al Unser Jr.	Galles Racing	Oldsmobile	G-Force	200	+11.3672	11		24
9	77	Jaques Lazier	TeamXtreme Racing	Oldsmobile	G-Force	199	+1 Lap	19	4	22
10	55	Shigeaki Hattori	Vertex-Cunningham Racing	Oldsmobile	Dallara	198	+2 Laps	5		20
11	2	Greg Ray	Team Menard	Oldsmobile	Dallara	195	Crash	20	86	21
12	51	Eddie Cheever	Team Cheever	Infiniti	Dallara	195	Crash	3	64	18
13	81	Billy Roe	Zali Racing	Oldsmobile	G-Force	195	+5 Laps	24		17
14	10	Robby McGehee	Cahill Racing	Oldsmobile	Dallara	188	Crash	17		16
15	12	Buzz Calkins	Bradley Motorsports	Oldsmobile	Dallara	188	+12 Laps	16		15
16	35	Jeff Ward	Heritage Motorsports	Oldsmobile	Dallara	184	Half Shaft	7		14
17	32	Didier André R	Galles Racing	Oldsmobile	G-Force	184	+16 Laps	21		13
18	15	Sarah Fisher	Walker Racing	Oldsmobile	Dallara	176	+24 Laps	18		12
19	88	Airton Daré	TeamXtreme Racing	Oldsmobile	G-Force	145	+55 Laps	12	5	11
20	28	Mark Dismore	Kelley Racing	Oldsmobile	Dallara	132	Engine	1	2	10
21	24	Robbie Buhl	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Infiniti	G-Force	116	Electrical	8		9
22	30	Brandon Erwin R	McCormack Motorsports	Oldsmobile	G-Force	72	Handling	23		8
23	6	Jeret Schroeder	PDM Racing	Oldsmobile	Dallara	71	Crash	15		7
24	99	Davey Hamilton	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	Oldsmobile	Dallara	71	Crash	22		6