Indianapolis ? Eddie Cheever is busier than ever, and loving every minute of it.

But the owner of Red Bull Cheever Racing doesn’t have time to also drive a race car, at least not this year.

“More frustrated, busier, cognizant of a lot more problems I didn’t realize were inherent in racing teams,” he said.

The 1998 Indianapolis 500 winner’s focus is working with rookie driver Buddy Rice and his team’s new Chevrolet-powered Dallaras.

“I spend a lot of my time at the beginning of every season and the end of every season making sure we have the right people,” Cheever said. “We did a lot of adjustment on our team to keep up with the times.”

He combined his jobs as owner and driver in 1997 and won the 500 the next year, the first time an owner-driver accomplished that feat since A.J. Foyt in 1977. If Cheever gets back to Victory Lane this year, it will be on foot.

“When we changed from Nissan to General Motors (engines) there was going to be a transition period where our team got technically up to speed again,” he said of his reason for ending his string of 13 straight starts at Indianapolis. “So it was natural for me to spend more time on the technical issues, the business issues, to make sure we catch up. It was not a difficult decision.”

The 45-year-old Cheever is not ruling out a comeback.

Unlike Michael Andretti, who plans to retire as a driver after the May 25 Indy 500 to run his Andretti Green Racing team, Cheever’s hiatus might be only temporary.

“I have not decided I’m not going to race; I’ve decided I’m not going to race until our race team is in position to win races again,” he said.