After two years with Rahal Letterman, Patrick moved into one of IRL’s elite stables, Andretti Green Racing, which employs drivers like Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti and Dan Wheldon (until he bolted for Ganassi after the 2005 season). Patrick and Marco Andretti fill out the current lineup.

Of AGR’s four current drivers, only Patrick has yet to record a win. Andretti, in his second season, had a win and seven top 10s last year. Kanaan has nine career wins (a win and 14 other top-fives since 2006) and Franchitti has six (with a win and eight top fives since ’06).

So equipment has not been the problem for Patrick, at least not compared to her teammates. In her first season with AGR — eight races so far — she has one top five finish and one start better than fifth.

Certainly, incidents have played a part; her dust-up with Wheldon at Milwaukee left her with equipment issues, and she was relegated to an eighth-place finish after holding fourth at the time of the incident. She confronted Wheldon on pit road, and the issue has largely faded in the intervening weeks.

A win is a lofty goal, certainly; Patrick and the IRL will certainly benefit if she’s able to pull that off.

But it seems at the moment a better consistency is more critical. At the moment, she’s fourth on a four-driver team.

• WHAT EXACTLY CONSTITUTES cheating?

Seems like a pretty easy definition, no? You break the rules, you cheat. Pretty simple.

So where, then, is the line between cheating and innovation?

Two well-respected NASCAR writers went looking for the line, and found it in very different places. In the wake of penalties for Hendrick Motorsports’ top two teams, David Poole of the Charlotte Observer took a hard line, particularly as it related to crew chiefs Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus.

A few days later, Ed Hinton from the Orlando Sentinel counters (in an admittedly more general argument) that were it not for the ‘innovation’ of crew members past, NASCAR would be nowhere near as popular as it is today.

Both make very good points. Poole cites the passage in the NASCAR rulebook that the Hendrick teams violated; the language was released by NASCAR, since their rulebooks aren’t available to the public. Hinton says NASCAR’s zero-tolerance policy on COT modifications only generate more negative publicity for the sport, particularly when its biggest stars (Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson) are swept up in the melee.

In a perfect world, Poole’s vision is the ideal one. Everyone works to the letter of the law, making the very best car they can squarely within the confines of the rulebook — a utopian vision if ever there was one.

But Hinton seems to represent what works best in a very imperfect world. With all the money floating around NASCAR these days — and the pressure that comes with it — it seems to take a certain (rather high) level of naiveté to believe that people won’t push hard against the boundaries.

I do reject the argument that just because people have always tried to cheat in NASCAR that it should be OK today. It shouldn’t be. But I also think that the argument, as stated, doesn’t do the whole discussion justice.

It’s like the old adage that Poole explicitly and Hinton indirectly cite: If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’. It’s a succinct expression, certainly, but it also glosses over some real-world issues; namely, where is the boundary between cheatin’ and tryin’?

Right now, we know where the boundary is. NASCAR is not going to allow any sort of modifications to the COT, period. Nextel Cup series director John Darby, in Hinton’s story, said that the violations that got Earnhardt and the Hendrick drivers penalized might not have been such a big deal with the old model. So template modifications on the COT are an absolute no-no.

But what if some inventive crew chief or engineer finds a way to push the envelope on something that won’t be seen by the templates?

Where does the line fall then?

• JUST A REMINDER THAT we’ll be taking some time off. We’ll be back in 10 days or so — July 11 or so. OK, so that’s more than 10 days. Give me a break, I’m tired, even after that venti mocha from Starbucks.

But it all plays in with my strategy. As a night owl (usual bedtime: 2 a.m.), tonight is not going to work so well with my sleep pattern, considering we fly out of BWI at 6:30. Doing some backwards math, that means being at the airport by 5, leaving our apartment around 4:15, getting up around 2:30.

So I’ve skimped on sleep the past two days to ensure I’ll be plenty tired for an early evening nap. That hopefully gives me enough ammo to stay up through the night and snooze on the plane for the first leg to Fabulous Las Vegas. (If any of you share my avaition geekiness — hey, you never know — I’ve done the research and, barring unusual weather, am expecting the TERPZ1 departure out of BWI and the TYSSN1 arrival into Las Vegas; from there, I figure on the SHEAD5 departure out of Vegas and the MOXEE6 arrival into Portland. Please note these links are all PDFs.)

So there you have it. Twelve days. And it only took me three paragraphs to figure it out.

(Photo by Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press)

Iowa Speedway, built by Rusty Wallace, is a short track too; on first glance, it looks remarkably similar to Richmond’s D-shaped oval. But Iowa is slightly more elongated and slightly longer, 7/8 of a mile to RIR’s 3/4 mile. The banking is pretty much the same; the turns are identical, while Iowa’s front- and backstretch have two degrees more banking than Richmond’s.

In the post-race press conference, Scott Sharp, who finished third, said Iowa was more demanding than either Richmond or Milwaukee.

“I think I’m definitely more tired than I would be in [Richmond or Milwaukee],” Sharp said. “It’s just that you have so much turning in the car, quite a significant amount more angle I think you have in the car here than you do either certainly at Milwaukee and I think even more than Richmond.”

So who’s going to be the driver to beat?

Dario Franchitti seems an obvious choice. He won at Iowa (as seen in the photo at right) and Indianapolis — he and Tony Kanaan are the only multiple winners so far this season — and has a commanding 51-point lead. (By comparison, positions two through six are separated by 29 points.)

Franchitti ran second at Milwaukee to Kanaan, even though that might not be the best comparison. Milwaukee is flat and a mile long, not dissimilar to New Hampshire, where the Nextel Cup tour stops this weekend.

Yet Franchitti’s best success at the track has come during the recent past: He’s got a second and a third in the past two races there.

Sam Hornish Jr. offers a more solid bet. He’s the defending champion of the event and had another win in 2002 and a runner-up finish back in 2001. He’s also run well this season; he’s got a win (which came at Texas earlier this month) and sits fifth in the standings, 10 points behind fourth-place Dan Wheldon.

He’s the only driver to win more than once at Richmond.

Scott Dixon, third in points, won the pole at Iowa and won at Richmond in 2003. Even Helio Castroneves, sixth in points and the last before a steep drop-off, has a win at Richmond (2005), a second, a third and two poles.

There’s no clear driver that could be listed as a favorite. It seems like it’s pick-a-name-out-of-a-hat.

But that’s what makes it fun, right?

It should be a good one on Saturday night.

• HOUSEKEEPING NOTES: An early note to let you know that I’ll be on vacation all of next week and into the following week. My wife and I are heading west to visit the in-laws in Bend, Ore., and that usually means a fun, relaxing time amid the great mountains of the West. (No, really, we always do have fun and usually do come home relaxed.)

That means you’ll be on your own to figure out how the races at New Hampshire and Daytona tie back into Paris Hilton’s freedom. (Did anyone else watch her on Larry King last night? I couldn’t get away from the highlights on CNN this morning, and one word came to mind: vapid. But if she really, truly wants to become a more positive role model AND follows through on it, then that’s not at all a bad thing and I will be happy to take back my negative comments.)

(Photos by Dana Garrett/IRL [Richmond in 2006] and Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press [Iowa last Sunday])

But on an early pit stop, Almirola gave way to Hamlin. Hamlin, though a lap down because of the driver change, rallied to win as Almirola retreated to the team’s hauler before leaving the track altogether without comment. He also didn’t celebrate with Hamlin (pictured at right) in victory lane, either.

“I was disappointed, upset and pretty mad,” Almirola said on a teleconference on Wednesday. “I tried to do the right thing, and that seemed to be to go ahead and be quiet and leave the track.
“I made the decision — and it was probably a rash decision — to leave the track. At the time, it seemed like the right decision.”

The team’s decision to lift Almirola came not from team president J.D. Gibbs, who was in Sonoma with the Cup tour, but from Joe Gibbs Racing people in Milwaukee in consultation with people from Rockwell, the No. 20’s sponsor.

J.D. Gibbs, at a press conference before Sunday’s Cup race, said he told the people in Milwaukee to come to a consensus on when, and even if, Hamlin should take over. If there was discord, Almirola should keep driving, he said.

Both Gibbs on Sunday and Almirola on Wednesday said that people from Rockwell were in on the decision because of their continued sponsorship back before Hamlin became a rising Cup star.

“Initially, we were undecided, because we weren’t planning on this,” Almirola, pictured at right, said. “Denny would get there on time and he’d land his helicopter. My job was to practice and qualify, and Denny would start and win. ... Really, everyone panicked, and they said to me, ‘Get in. You’re racing.’ It was something I never dreamed of — we all kind of wung it.”

When Almirola got out of the car, he sulked off to the team’s hauler, shaking his head, according to the Associated Press story from the race. But he said on Wednesday that he had made amends with the team before he left the track and wanted them to know he was only upset with the situation, not with them.

He also took a shot at the media, saying it had blown up the story into a Hamlin vs. Almirola battle instead of properly giving credit to the crew, which prepared a dominating car.

In the days since, he’s had a meeting with Gibbs and team owner Joe Gibbs. And he says the meeting helped, though he’s still frustrated with how things turned out.

“They were sorry for sure and they weren’t happy with the circumstance. It was lose-lose for everyone,” Almirola said.

• COMING TOMORROW AND FRIDAY: We’ll step out of NASCAR mode for a couple of days to take a look at Saturday night’s IRL race in Richmond. (Though we’ll still keep an eye on what’s going on in Cup.)

It’s always one of the most insane races of the year; they turn laps at 3/4-mile RIR in the same time that Cup cars qualify at Bristol, which is 1/4-mile shorter.

(Photos by Darren Hauck/Associated Press [Hamlin]; and courtesy of NASCAR [Almirola])

As it turned out, Busch got a hefty fine for his pit-road shenanigans at Dover with Tony Stewart, but no jail sentence, errr, suspension.

Here we are, twenty-three days later. Hilton is free, and someone — or some two — is on the verge of being hauled away in Helton’s cruiser.

And these two scofflaws seem to have a far better chance at jail time, errr, suspension, than Busch did: Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus.

The crew chiefs for Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson should be expecting a phone call from Helton or Nextel Cup series director John Darby any time now.

You’ll recall that the two had their cars parked on Friday, forcing their drivers to miss qualifying at Sonoma. Both rebounded nicely with top-20 finishes, however.

But NASCAR doesn’t take kindly to people messing with its COT design. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team was dealt a stiff penalty — 100 driver points, $100,000 fine — for an illegal wing bracket at Darlington; Junior’s crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., still isn’t back from his suspension.

So when the Nos. 24 and 48 appeared in the inspection line with an unacceptable nose, the cars were parked and Letarte (pictured to Gordon’s left with an unidentified crew member) and Knaus should have known that they’d suddenly have a lot more time for golfing. (Hendrick Motorsports called the illegal nose a mistake with no intention of skirting the rules.)

Both figure to get at least a similar penalty like Junior’s team did. Letarte, with no criminal history (at least as far as Sheriff Helton is concerned), figures to get the same ban that Eury did.

Knaus is a trickier one to figure. He does have a felony in his file: an illegal modification during Speed Weeks last year; he missed the first four races of the season, but Johnson won two of them. If anyone’s going to get hammered by these penalties, chances are it’s Knaus.

Either way, it seems Hendrick’s top two teams are going to take a beating from NASCAR. Letarte has already proven himself a very skilled crew chief — think of that call at the rain-shortened Pocono race — but Johnson has shown he can win without Knaus.

Their suspensions will have the biggest effect. The point loss, especially if it’s only 100, would still keep Gordon in the lead and Johnson is still a long way from the danger zone of missing the Chase. The money? Like that’s ever a deterrent in any sport.

Paris sure wouldn’t miss $100 large.

But here’s the difference: She’s free.

Maybe she kept her cell tidy for the new jailed roommates, Letarte and Knaus.

• UPDATE: NASCAR has announced that Letarte and Knaus have been suspended for six races each (until mid-August) and that the teams have both been fined $100,000 and penalized 100 driver points. Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon, the listed owners of the No. 24 and 48, have also been docked 100 owner points.

These are the same set of penalties that were issued to Eury and the No. 8 team.

Knaus didn’t get the hammer like I thought he might. NASCAR is setting the bar fairly (relatively?) high for these teams. But chances are we’ll see at least one more COT infraction over the remainder of the year. The bar isn’t that high, after all.

(Photos by Nick Ut of the Associated Press [Hilton], Media General News Service [Knaus] and Marcio Jose Sanchez of the Associated Press [Letarte and Gordon])