Redhat's initialization scripts start ethernet before they initialize PCMCIA. So when it tries to initialize ethernet, it hasn't yet seen the ethernet card (a Xircom card which works great with Linux) and delays ethernet. I edited /etc/init.d/pcmcia and changed the line:
2345 20 96 to read 2345 9 96 -- use priority 9 because ethernet has priority 10. Then do chkconfig pcmcia off followed by chkconfig pcmcia on to install the file. I don't know if this is the best solution, but it does work.