I’ve been wrong my share of the time. I didn’t realize it in my idealistic youth. The only time a man thinks he knows it all is when he doesn’t know much. Fortunately, where NASCAR was concerned, I was a grown man when I got there. Back in the 1990s, I wrote columns that likened NASCAR to “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a world where sycophants told the boss his threads were elegant in spite of the fact that he was naked. I also warned that the sport’s leaders were going on hunting expeditions every day to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Sunday, the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma was the last race of the FOX broadcast season and Darrell Waltrip’s commentating career, it was a race that would cap off with a thrilling late run for the lead and an underdog moving through the field for his career-best finish.

The day began with Kyle Larson starting on the pole, his third straight pole at Sonoma, but he would lose the lead immediately after Waltrip’s last, “Boogity boogity boogity!” as William Byron pulled a perfect launch and pulled away. Larson continued the fall back as drivers like Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, and Denny Hamlin passed him. Byron extended his lead to over three seconds while some of the lead pack drivers pitted with three laps to go to set them up for a good stage two restart. Byron went on to win stage one by over nine seconds, the first stage win of his Cup career.

Maybe I’ll go see a ballgame. Maybe I’ll write a song. NASCAR is off this week.

Not that racing is off the docket. Why, I went to the 38th annual Laurens County Shrine Race on Tuesday night at the local dirt track. I enjoyed the people more than the racing. Sometimes that was true when I traveled all over the country. I don’t get much of the people on TV. I liked to interact with fans in their natural habitat.

I’m fond of the occasional “travelogue.”

A travelogue, in my mind, is a reminiscence about the place, not the event, not the people but the scene. At other times, I write about people. This is because, as two decades of traveling to NASCAR races across the country grow distant, I most miss the people and places.

I watched racing all day and much of the night Sunday. I got up early to watch the Grand Prix of Monaco. Then I switched to the Indianapolis 500. Then I watched the Coca-Cola 600, though I spent an hour in the middle of the race playing my guitar on Facebook while I checked occasionally on the muted TV screen.

Even though he didn’t win any stages, Kyle Busch breezed to a win at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400.

Much like two years ago, Martin Truex Jr walked away from Charlotte Motor Speedway as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 winner, but unlike last time he had to put up a fight.

Six hundred miles. It’s a long way. My proudest achievement of the last few years was driving all the way home from Gainesville, Texas, in a single day. I didn’t plan on it. I just started out, the lure of home was great, and I just kept going and going and going.

That was a little over 1,000 miles, but I didn’t drive them wide-ass open and on the edge of out of control. Oh, no. I set the cruise control and filled up several times on gasoline and coffee. My exciting journey would have bored Kyle Busch, but it was right sporty by my lowly standards.

With an exciting weekend of racing ahead at Charlotte Motor Speedway, NASCAR today will recognize the industry’s pioneers of diversity at the 12th annual NASCAR Drive for Diversity Awards hosted at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
 
Industry leaders and personnel will gather Thursday morning in Charlotte, N.C., for an awards ceremony that will honor NASCAR drivers, pit crew members and industry partners and ambassadors for their work promoting diversity and inclusion across the sport. 

I love Charlotte Motor Speedway. Seriously, I do. I loved it when it was Lowe’s Motor Speedway. I loved it when the race to be run Saturday night was The Winston. And The Winston Select. And the Nextel All-Star Race. And the Sprint All-Star Race.

Why didn’t they call it The Sprint? That’s what it was. Why don’t they call it The Monster now?

Why? Why, why, why, why, whyyyy it went away. My little runaway, run, run, run, run, runawayyyyyy!