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I have always had a knack of seeing irony while others are nodding their heads in unthinking adoration.

For instance, many years ago, I was sitting in the media center at Charlotte Motor Speedway – it may have been Lowe’s, then, but who can keep up? – when the late Dale Earnhardt was introduced as the State of North Carolina’s spokesman to prevent teen-agers from driving aggressively.

Earnhardt, rest in peace, was at least nationally and perhaps internationally – or, for all we know, depending on how far Wikileaks reaches, intergalactically – known for driving aggressively.

Okay.

I got that same firing of the synapses last week when I read that Kentucky Speedway had declared itself a smoke-free facility.

I’m not pro-smoking. It has been my unscientific observation over the years that NASCAR fans are more prone to smoke than the general public. I have also heard other fans complain of their annoyance at sitting near smokers. I believe tracks should have non-smoking grandstands, probably lots of them.

Smoking causes cancer. So do belching city buses, and diesel tractor-trailers on busy interstates. It strikes me as humorous that fans willing to risk breathing the smoke that multi-car crashes and blown engines emit are concerned about a nearby Marlboro Light lighting up.

In short, I do not anticipate seeing a day or night when any race track is truly a smoke-free facility.

According to the newest information I can find, Kentucky has the highest smoking rate, 30 percent, of any state in the Union. West Virginia is second at 29.9.

I can’t help but believe that market considerations should apply, too. Attendance at many tracks – and the one in Kentucky is no exception – is sagging. I expect at least some smokers, upon learning that a track is intent on protecting them from themselves, will stay home.

That’s what NASCAR needs: one more reason to stay home.

Smoking will only be banned in the grandstands. It will still be allowed in the parking lots, campgrounds, infield, and, yes, garage areas. I would hate to be in charge of a smoking ban in the area where race cars are serviced and repaired. The athletic requirements of being a pit-crew member nowadays have undoubtedly lessened the smoking rate there in recent years, but it is my theory that men who spend their days on their backs under race cars while engines are fired are unlikely to be frightened of an occasional smoke out back during breaks. I think firemen (and firewomen) smoke more than the general population for the same reason, though, once again, that is an unscientific observation.

Many fans profess to love the smell of burning rubber, exhaust fumes, and the foul odors of various and sundry fluids. It’s the same way a kid raised on the farm kind of misses the aroma of cow manure, or an ex-high school football player remembers the sour smell of sweaty jerseys drying overnight in a locker room. Then again, I’m an ex-high school football player who grew up on a farm.

I’m confident many people heard the Kentucky news and thought, Gosh, what a great idea. It’s civic-minded, health-conscious and politically correct, meaning it feeds all the major food groups of prevailing nutrition.

It made me laugh. I’m not going to be there. The world has had four years now to send me back there. No one who wants me back there is in a position to send me back there. They apparently don’t want me back there.

I must be too much trouble. I never smoked at a race track. Somehow I’ve been grouped with those who do. By the way, that’s not ironic. That’s coincidental.

I expect cigarettes constitute about one percent of the toxic smoke at race tracks. Again, it’s an unscientific observation.

All right. Whatever.