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NASCAR races are regular. From February through November, they occur most weekends, most often on Sunday afternoons but sometimes on Saturday or Sunday nights. Sometimes it rains.

Watching them is a habit. Unfortunately, in recent years, it’s become one that millions have kicked.

It’s grown more distant. I don’t go to the tracks anymore. As Tom T. Hall once noted about another addiction (guitar picking), “Ain’t no money in it. It’ll lead you to an early grave.”

Generally, I watch the races on TV and sigh. A great majority of those who are there, write and talk about them seem to believe these are the only ones that have ever been run.

Let me summarize the taste of the tear-gas canisters being fired electronically out of South Florida:

You hear me? Jimmie Johnson is the greatest there ever was! It’s over. He is stock car racing’s New Testament. He was erased everything anyone else ever did! In terms of pseudo-sedans going around and around for hours upon hours, he is the truth, the way and the light. If you don’t go to Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse at least once a week, you’re a traitor!

Friends, just moderate your tone a little. Johnson belongs in the discussion. So do Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. The discussion isn’t a matter of one arbitrary standard wed to all sorts of spurious claims and conclusions. Number of championships is an important consideration. It’s just not the only one. Any debate regarding the greatest should include drivers who never won championships – Junior Johnson, Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts, et al. – and others who didn’t really seek the points championships many times. From 1949 through 1971, there wasn’t much money in winning championships. Since 2004, there haven’t been many races involved in winning championships.

Johnson has won the championship of the last 10 races seven times, and there is great art and proficiency in that. He is the greatest driver who ever lived in the minds of those with short attention spans and the ill-considered belief that everything new is best.

For the record, I like Johnson a lot. His career is incredible. Other drivers wow the fans by being able to “save a car.” Johnson wows me by seldom having to. As a driver and a personality, he reminds me of Mark Donohue. As an athlete, he reminds me of Hank Aaron.

Smooth. Graceful. Makes it look easy. He cannot be fully evaluated until his career is over. His twilight lies ahead. Either he will demonstrate his rare wisdom again by getting out while he’s still on top, or he will decline. All who linger slow down. When first they slow down, they make up for it with wisdom and guile, but at some point, they get as wise as they are ever going to get and their skills continue to decline.

When other drivers begin saying, “Oh, I promise you, Jimmie Johnson didn’t forget how to drive a race car,” they will mean it’s down to memory now.

When it’s all said and done, then we can place Johnson in the pantheon of the greats who occupy the NASCAR Olympus. He may be the greatest ever. He may not even be the greatest Johnson. It is a matter of some debate.

In 1998, I overheard Herb Thomas say to Bobby Allison, “Who is this Jeff Gordon? What in hell did he ever do?”

Herb’s gone now, and he couldn’t possibly have been paying much attention back in 1998 not to know what Gordon had ever done.

The problem is that few of those offering their learned opinions today have any idea what Thomas ever did.

A lot, sir. A lot.