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It’s holiday season, which means that stock car racing fans, confronted by a period when engines are not firing nor checkered flags waving, ask themselves, when bored by yet another ballgame:

How can they fix it?

It’s not how can they fix it. They can’t fix it. The Lords of Daytona Beach think they can fix it by showing up or watching on TV, but NASCAR’s problems are no simple matter. To paraphrase from a baseball love story, if they fix it, we will come. If we merely come – perhaps, to quell the multitude of dirty minds, if we go, as to the track – that will not fix it.

NASCAR is in a malaise only Jimmy Carter could appreciate. It’s a blue funk, a crimson tide that isn’t rolling, a yellow peril, a Cleveland brown and a black mood. The Lords of Daytona Beach are literally trying to reinvent the wheel. Four of them times 40 cars, 36 times a year. That comes to 5,760 theories of what is wrong.

I’ve just got one. NASCAR went out of style. Not for me. Not for you. You’re reading this.

It’s December. Burl Ives is having a holly, jolly Christmas this year. Meanwhile, we’re singing a new song, a sad dirge known as “Junior’s Gone.”

The sport has morphed into a hairy dog, and all we can do is hunker down.

The Lords have tried everything except a barrel of monkeys. A Chase. A Chase Elliott. Wings and things. Phases and stages. Bonus points. Rutledge Wood.

Once upon a time, the Lords were convinced they could sell sand to Arabs. Now they can’t sell them water.

My advice, after years of soul searching, teeth gnashing and beer guzzling, is just stop. Relax. Chill. You’re trying too hard. No one without credentials understands what the hell is going on. Half the fan base has already died from the rocking pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu.

The business is racing. How about just letting them race?