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Okay, I know you don’t follow NASCAR as much as you used to. It’s amazing how much you manage to find to fuss about since you barely pay attention anymore.

I used to be on the road for most of the year. Now I watch the races on high-definition TV and tweet when something strikes my fancy. I think ’em through, get up the next morning, study up a bit and write a blog (montedutton.com) that I hope offers a little perspective I was lacking the night before.

Is it just me? It still seems as if something is missing when a weekend occurs without a scheduled Monster Cup race. It might seem a little less vacant if football games were on TV, but when they start, there won’t be any weekends free of NASCAR.

Fortunately, I manage to stay occupied. High school football begins Friday night in these parts. Just this morning, I attended a City Council meeting that was a little like a football game.

This weekend, all I’ve got to keep my blood circulating is the odd appearance of Bill Elliott in the Xfinity race at Road America. Bill is older than I. I hope he does well. I’m starting to like old guys across the board.

Bill Elliott is racing again. Maybe I’ll start drinking.

Nah. I’m just some writer staring at the wall. My idea of adventure is Mexican food.

When I was a kid, I was chauvinistic. In the Olympics, I rooted only for Americans. Maybe that’s why I was early attracted to stock car racing. As I grew older, my taste grew more sophisticated. I stopped rooting for Americans I thought were jerks. When I arrived at a vantage point where I could see athletes as more than cardboard cutouts, I lost my taste for cardboard cutouts.

Finally, I made the transformation from fan to writer, which is the literary equivalent of boy to man. I don’t root as much for teams or men or women. I root for stories. I still like some celebs and not others, but if my favorite person on earth won three straight races, even then I’d yearn for someone else.

How many times can I write that the greatest guy on earth won a race? It loses its allure rapidly.