I've experienced momentary loss of speedo, plus low fuel light on, a couple of times on my '98. It hasn't happened for about a year now.
There was a thread on the topic, but as I recall no specific solution, everyone suspects bad connection in instrument panel.
Due to it's infrequent and intermittent nature I have not bothered to diagnose probable cause. I'm posting just to indicate probably unrelated to your other problem. FYI.
Edit: A search using speedo, subject only, will get you a few similar problems, including my post on this one:
http://www.contour.org/cgi-ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=007319&p=
