Cheat Sheet: Richmond 2007

The Indy Raining League came to Virginia yesterday, washing out qualifications for the SunTrust Indy Challenge and placing points leader Dario Franchitti on the pole. As if he needs more good luck.

It should be noted that as much good luck as Mr Judd has enjoyed this season, he's pretty much taken it from just about every pick the Cheat Sheet has had. It's time to face the facts: the Cheat Sheet has hit a prolonged slump of bad luck. I mean not only has it not had a "favorite" actually win a race, our oracle emeritus MoneyCJ has also been astoundingly winless for the past few weeks.

Having not picked a winner since the first race, the Cheat Sheet (and it's picks) have been suffering a Cubs-like streak of bad luck. There has been a tremendous amount going around, especially for preseason Championship favorite Helio Castroneves. Snapped wing at Milwaukee, hit by a tire at Texas, spun on hard tires TWICE at Iowa - once exiting the pits and again behind the Danica Sandwich, taking out Kosuke Matsuura during the latter. He is snakebit, and so are we.

Things have gotten so bad our dark horse picks like Vitor Meira and Tomas Scheckter are also getting taken out in incidents not of their own doing. Quite simply - we are afraid we are jinxing drivers. We don't even have superstitions around here - we just not the coincidence.

So we are staring into the bloodshot eyes of truth and taking a week off to collect ourselves. For starters, we are going to look deeper into the reasons why neither of us is picking Dario Franchitti despite winning several races and leading the championship by a large margin.

We are going to see if Vitor Meira is poised to make another second half surge. We are contemplating if Ed Carpenter and Darren Manning are actually possible contenders in races. We are worrying that Sam Hornish Jr is getting surly. We are still staring into but have not consumed the Danica Patrick Kool-Aid. We need to decide if Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon are no longer lacking on short tracks.

We are even thinking that now may be the time to jump back on the Marco Andretti bandwagon.

At any rate, I would have finally taken Dario and Money would have courageously chosen Helio. But I will instead settle on my couch and observe the events at Richmond, where Penske has been so successful. Meanwhile Money will be partying somewhere at Richmond International Raceway, yelling obscenities at the Venezuelan government.

Enjoy the show!