Cheever responds to double accusation.

1998 Indy 500 winner Eddie Cheever will not look back on the 2006 Watkins Glen Indy Grand Prix with a great degree of fondness after he was called an idiot by both Danica Patrick and Michael Andretti and was also trashed on live TV by Michael's son Marco.

The comments by Patrick and Andretti, both of which were caught via either car to pits audio or, in Marco's case, a live TV interview, were then played to a global TV audience and with both drivers among the most popular on the IRL scene Cheever was left looking like the distinct bad guy at the end of the day.

Strangely the TV cameras didn't catch up with Cheever, who was in his third full-time Formula One season when Patrick was born and who was celebrating his 100th GP start when Marco was barely six months old, during their coverage of the race, in which Cheever and Andretti both retired after a controversial lap 39 accident.

While Andretti continued his emotional tirade in front of the cameras, Patrick was also caught in the heat of the moment as she recovered from a restart spin and brush with the last turn tyre barrier which she claims Cheever started earlier in the race.

The 48-year old American, who was running a lap down to Andretti at the time of their crash, is not known to mince his words and, in a statement released by his eponymous team, he vigorously denied Marco's accusations that he deliberately drove him off the track and into the guardrails.

"To think I would intentionally take anyone out is just ludicrous," Cheever
said. "It's beyond words. It was a racing accident, pure and simple. There certainly wasn't any intent, so I find the accusations incomprehensible."

After the accident, Andretti said Cheever "absolutely, on purpose" crashed into him. During a live TV interview after the crash, Michael Andretti, Marco's father and team owner, called Cheever "a complete idiot."

"No single team is the centre of the racing universe, no matter how much they seem to think they are," Cheever said. "Nobody took them out intentionally, so their accusations look a bit ridiculous."

The feud between Cheever and the Andretti family dates back to 1992, when Mario Andretti crashed into Cheever at Long Beach. It resumed in April, when the Andretti's verbally trashed Cheever after an incident between Marco Andretti and Cheever during practice for the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

"Let there be no mistake, I would never let any feelings I might have carry over to the race course, where lives are at stake," continued Cheever. "I have lost too many friends to this sport to be so shallow. It was a racing accident, pure and simple."

As for Danica, Cheever spared few words.

"She did that all by herself," Cheever said.

He may have spared Marco and Danica his full verbal onslaught, but Cheever wasted no time in having a dig at 'old-pal' Michael however.

"The last I looked, I earned the label of Indy 500 champion; those lobbing unfounded accusations at me have not," Cheever concluded. "I'm not perfect, and neither are my accusers. Let's get back to racing."