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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.

Just one more week of very high-quality NASCAR cartoons. The good news – no, the great news – is that the simulated, virtual, “have a wreck, man, don’t hurt nothin’” racing is at simulated North Wilkesboro Speedway, where I wrote about NASCAR when dinosaurs walked the earth (and the press gift was a Mason jar of illegal liquor). Wilkesboro for kicks and Darlington for real. What a smooth combination, even in these troubled times.

No one’s going to be warring on social media about the crowd because there won’t be any to war about. I’ve always thought empty tracks (and ballparks and stadia) are haunting. Once, during a misty late night at Rockingham, I expected either the ghost of Herb Thomas or Hank Williams to drive up.

If you’re big-star bound, let me warn you it’s a long, hard ride …

In short, I’m feeling like a bucking horse waiting to get out of the stall.

It’s been a big day. I talked to a close friend in person, albeit at a safe distance.

I saw a video of Joe Frazier singing “Six Days on the Road” with Buck Owens and

Roy Clark on Hee Haw. Suspecting that I could sing it better than Joe, I figured out how to play it again. I used to play it all the time.

I could, especially with Buck and Roy harmonizing.

I did my own little private session and, trying to come up with a song about how these bad times are going to end eventually, sang “Love’s Gonna Live Here,” then, just to satisfy my Buck Run Amok, made up verse after verse of “I Don’t Care,” one of which was:

I don’t care if the virus grows / I don’t care if the sperm whale blows / Just as long as you love me.

Please, please, please, play nice. Keep your social distance. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Keep a Clorox Wipe handy (oh, no, mine are getting low).

Then we can have nice things. Then there’ll be a race to watch. And if we keep playing nice, maybe we can leave our houses and even go to a race.

I will dream pleasantly tonight, for once.