In a way, I understand why events in New Hampshire and the country took attention away from the NASCAR race run there.

Let’s be honest. It wasn’t much of one.

So desperate were NASCAR officials to make an example of Joey Logano that they made him sit in his car for an entire practice session. This was cruel and unusual punishment. They could have at least allowed him to write 100 times on a chalkboard “my car must pass inspection.” They could have given him a copy of the rulebook with the warning that there would be a pop quiz. They could have held him in the pits until he could recite the Gettysburg Address. They could have given him a choice of being paddled.

Danica Patrick is driving the No. 10 Ford Warriors in Pink Fusion race car this weekend in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Apache Warrior 400 at Dover International Speedway. The debut of the special Warriors in Pink livery for Sunday’s race comes just in time for Breast Cancer Awareness  month,  and marks Ford’s decades-long commitment to raising awareness and funds in the fight against the disease. Patrick will take to the track again with the Warriors in Pink Fusion Oct. 8 for the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Patrick’s No. 10 race car displays the warrior symbol to honor the powerful, courageous women and men engaged in the fight against breast cancer. Symbols are a key part of the inspirational message Ford Warriors in Pink represents – serving to uplift those who exhibit strength and courage in the face of their greatest battle.

Back when I was at the track regularly, when I offered my solutions to NASCAR’s problems from time to time, an exasperated official would give me a condescending look and ask, “Do you think you could do any better?”

Then I would get the official double-exasperated by saying something like, “Not me, in particular. I think most anybody could.”

The conversation usually ended right about then.

Ernie Banks never said, “Let’s play 10.”

This isn’t the Chase anymore. NASCAR’s “playoffs” are off and “playing” in Joliet, Ill. If it was me, they’d be the race-offs. Racers don’t play. They race. I suppose “race-offs” has a fatal hyphen in it, and they couldn’t even brand a hyphen in Rawhide.

What I should be doing right now is figuring out how this works. I’ve read it all before, but this system requires a reference guide, and my memory isn’t what it once was. I didn’t have access to the Internet back when I didn’t need it. The Good Lord works in mysterious ways.

Darlington is in the rearview mirror, and I always love Darlington like cowboys love cutting horses, but something just has to be written about one of the doggonedest racing stories I’ve ever seen.

Jeremy Clements, 32 years’ worth of where NASCAR stars used to come from and how they made it big, won the Xfinity Series race at Road America on the 27th day and fourth Sunday of August.

I have just published my second novel about a young race-car driver from Spartanburg, S.C., and Clements proved with evidence that would stand up in court that truth is stranger than fiction.

NASCAR could learn from Darlington’s success.

All the frantic concentration on change has scrubbed too much of the grit off stock car racing. Lo and behold, the Bojangles’ Southern 500 is still unique. Its relevance in the present is derived from its past.

Meanwhile, NASCAR modernizes.

Darlington isn’t the biggest house on the circuit, but it was packed, or at least that’s the way it looked on TV.