As these words are written, Charlotte Motor Speedway is scheduled to host four races in three series over the next four nights including this one. Thunderstorms are forecast to one extent or another in all four of them. Thunderstorms are hard to predict. They’re always cropping up and dissipating, hitting and missing, causing delays mainly in stock car races because there isn’t much else going on now.

The so-called “vortex theory,” which is kind of NASCAR’s version of hydrochloroquine, has fallen into disfavor since Darrell Waltrip has become less ubiquitous.

One of the drivers who most changed over the years was Mark Martin.

When I first met Martin, he was wound tight as a spring. I learned that the best times to talk to Martin were when times were bad. When he won a race, he sort of “humbled out.” I’m not sure I can count the times he said his favorite homily, “In order to finish first, first one must finish.”

I always admired his work ethic. I just had a hard time figuring out how to write about it. Once I wrote a column in which I wrote Martin didn’t really understand the word “fun” the way most people did. To him, fun was winning, and it was mainly joyless.

Shortly after, Martin’s longtime crew chief and friend, Jimmy Fennig, became angry at me in the garage, telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about.

One of more amusing personal characteristics of young drivers – and, I trust, Kurt Busch – is making ridiculous comparisons.

As I was watching the simulation of modern drivers racing at long-closed North Wilkesboro Speedway, I wondered what they’d say about the glorious anachronism of the Brushy Mountains.

I’m still wondering. I checked email and only a transcript of race winner Denny Hamlin’s remarks had been sent me, and most of the questions asked Hamlin – I assume there may have been some form of interview because it was different from what he said on TV – were about such red-hot North Wilkesboro topics as social distancing and other forms of pandemic life.

Over the years, I’ve head the young, the brash, the desperate to get their words in a blog, opine all sorts of far-fetched declarations.

May 17. Real racing is scheduled to return.

It’s the biggest thing on May 17 since Brown vs. Board of Education.

Darlington Raceway is not just the Track Too Tough to Tame. It’s my favorite track. It’s where my daddy took me to watch the Silver Fox arrive and conquer.