IRL: Team Cheever, Excite@Home gear up for partnering

PHOENIX, Arizona - March 16, 2000 -- 1998 Indy 500 winner, Eddie Cheever, Jr., and Internet industry giant, Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM) today announced a two year partnership to bring the best of racing and broadband to fans worldwide. Together through the 2001 race season, the two will partner, on track and on line, to bring together the speed of racing with the speed of broadband. Information will be continuously updated at http://sports.excite.com throughout the relationship. The car will be called the #51 Excite@Home Indy Race Car.

"Excite@Home and Team Cheever have very similar personalities - being in high gear most of the time," said Cheever, Indy Racing's premier owner and driver. "We conducted in-depth research to find a company for whom motorsports could answer specific marketing and business-to-business needs. We also wanted to try and find a company that has both the capability and the interest in being a forerunner in developing innovative ways for Team Cheever to interact with race fans worldwide."

Over the next several months, Team Cheever and Excite@Home will conduct numerous events and promotional programs, utilizing the race team and its corporate partner. The programs will showcase the speed of Internet delivery, available through Excite@Home's broadband service, and offer a unique user experience via the Excite portal.

The scope and reach of Excite@Home is two-fold. Excite.com receives an average of 123 million page views per day and has over 51 million registered users. @Home, with over 72 million homes under contract, and 1.15 million subscribers through its cable network, allows consumers to experience the Internet at a high-speed, with a broadband connection. Using cable-modem broadband technology versus traditional phone line dial-up, the @Home consumer is able to retrieve data up to 100 times faster than the normal 28.8K modems.

"When you combine the sheer reach popularity of the Excite portal with the super-fast Internet delivery of @Home's broadband service, you quickly see that it is the perfect platform for race fans," said Fred Siegel, Sr. Vice President, Marketing for Excite@Home. "It will allow them to experience, and interact with, the speed, excitement and strategy of auto racing from their own homes, schools or places of work."

"Our plan is to provide the consumer with ways to intimately interact with our world. For example, we are working to find ways for fans to be in the cockpit with me, at speed, or to be in the garage in the midst of a debriefing with Owen, Dane and the Infiniti engineers, or even perhaps, to be in the pits during a practice session," Cheever adds. "We'll be able to reach out directly to our fans and give them the opportunity to experience motorsports, and the Internet, as never before. "

Like Excite@Home, Team Cheever is on the front line of technological advancements and is not afraid of making bold moves to ensure that they stay on the cutting edge. Last year, Cheever moved to the Infiniti engine, and this season, Cheever plans to use both the new Riley & Scott and the Dallara chassis to capitalize on each particular track.

"This is the last step of a five year plan," spoke Cheever. "We have worked hard to develop partnerships with Infiniti, Riley & Scott, Firestone and Dallara that would provide us the tools to win races and championships. Excite@HomeExcite@Home completes these partnerships and, as an integral partner, will help all of us achieve that plan."

"We are absolutely thrilled to get the partnership 'on track' and truly look forward to the array of incredible opportunities that lie ahead through our sponsorship of Team Cheever," continued Siegel.

Team Cheever is currently ranked third in the 2000 Indy Racing Northern Light Series Driver and Team standings. Round two of the series takes place this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway with the MCI WorldCom Indy 200. Green Flag drops at 2pm (MST) on Sunday, March 19th and will be televised live on ABC Sports at 4pm (EST). Qualifying will be televised on ESPN2 at 5:30pm (EST) on Saturday, March 18th.