Up this hill and down / And up this hill again / It’s a mighty, mighty long road / What ain’t got no end.

It makes no sense that a stock car race, at a track surrounded by vineyards, located across a huge bay named for San Francisco on the other end, would evoke in me the lyrics of an ancient country song. It was written by Richard D. Staedter back in God knows when. I expect I first heard it sung by the Wilburn Brothers, Teddy and Doyle. Staedter also wrote another hit of theirs, “It’s Another World.”

Faron Young sang “Wine Me Up,” but I don’t think he and Billy Deaton wrote it with Wine Country in mind.

Furniture Row Racing driver Martin Truex Jr. was a big hit with the Colorado Rockies players before throwing out the first pitch Thursday prior to the Rockies/Arizona Diamondbacks game.

A number of Rockies players came up to Truex to talk racing, including Rockies manager Bud Black.

 
Ryan Blaney and the Wood Brothers Racing Team will be back to their Motorcraft/Quick Lane livery when they head to Sonoma Raceway in northern California for Sunday’s Save Mart 350 road race.

Blaney understands he's got his work cut out for him in racing the challenging road course. 

The first time I ever saw the Wood Brothers’ Ford, I don’t remember it. In my defense, I was only seven years old. Most of what I remember is that Ned Jarrett won the race, and the two most beautiful automobiles I ever saw were driven that day by Fred Lorenzen and Richard Petty.

I just looked up the box score of the Volunteer 500, run on July 25, 1965, at Bristol International (now Motor) Speedway. (It also spent some time as a Raceway.) Eight laps into that race, Marvin Panch, in the No. 21 Ford, and David Pearson, in the No. 6 Dodge, crashed. They placed 35th and 36th, respectively. In the first NASCAR race I ever saw, the driver who would become my hero crashed into the car in which he would earn his greatest fame.

My late father would have said (and, most likely, did), “If that ain’t a Dutton deal, I don’t know what is.”

The primary paint scheme on Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway has been a good luck charm for the Furniture Row Racing driver.

Lansing, Mich.-based Auto-Owners Insurance will have the primary sponsorship featuring the blue schematic which has enjoyed success in its four races with Furniture Row Racing. The record includes two wins, four top 10s and a pole.

When NASCAR visited Charlotte Motor Speedway, I was there.

When NASCAR visited Dover International Speedway, I was at my nephew’s house, celebrating my mother’s birthday and watching great-nephews crash into one another.

At Charlotte, I watched 400 laps, interspersed by brief periods of inactivity at the end of what are now stages and used to be called delays. At Dover, I watched roughly the first 10 and last 25 laps on TV.

I’m back. Home. Home sweet home. I got home from Charlotte Motor Speedway at five in the morning. I was reverent on Memorial Day. It may have been because I was tired, though I’d like to think not.

The return to a NASCAR track was pleasant, late-night barrels of truck-stop coffee notwithstanding.

I’ve been reading about everything else that happened in the world while I was away. The Indianapolis 500, won by Takuma Sato, overshadowed the object of my endeavors. Indy had Fernando Alonso’s brave performance, Scott Dixon’s frightening crash and an upset victory for the second straight year.

On the heels of launching its new live TV service, premium streaming service, Hulu, today announced a new brand partnership with NASCAR driver Jeffrey Earnhardt, serving as the primary sponsor for 19 races in 2017. Earnhardt’s new #33 Chevrolet and racing suit were revealed today at the Dover International Speedway – one of Earnhardt’s favorite tracks - and features the company’s signature Hulu green.

The sponsorship marks the first of its kind for Hulu, and will bring the Hulu brand to the NASCAR Cup Series for the first time. Jeffrey Earnhardt’s newly-rebranded #33 Chevrolet and racing suit will make its on-track debut this Sunday, June 4th at the “AAA 400 Drive for Autism” Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race at the Dover International Speedway.

Martin Truex Jr. said that not winning Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 had a stinging effect. But there was a silver lining for the Furniture Row Racing driver with his third-place outcome in NASCAR’s longest race (400 laps, 600 miles).

He took over the NASCAR Cup Series driver points lead, thanks to an additional 26 points he accrued for finishing second, first and fourth in the three stages leading up to the final 100-lap shootout.

All the buzz at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway all month had centered on the Hollywood-handsome two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso, who elected to bypass another crack at the Grand Prix of Monaco to race at this tantalizingly tough 2.5-mile oval course.

And a foreign driver had a better-than-even chance to win Sunday’s 101st Indianapolis 500-Mile Race. Nineteen of the 33 starters were non-Americans.