Many years ago, before Brian Zachary France abdicated the NASCAR throne, before he even wore it, when he was being groomed for it and quite obviously thought he was ready, I asked the young prince about the how big stock car racing could be.

At the time, he thought it could be bigger than pro football. Worldwide, he thought it could be bigger than futbol, not to mention the Indianapolis 500, Grand Prix of Monaco and 24 Hours of Le Mans combined.

As a young man, France lacked neither confidence nor ambition.

The novelty of iRacing ran out for me. I didn’t even watch the one in would-be Richmond, Va. The unexpected melancholy probably had more than a little to do with Kyle Larson, who threw his career away racing in a silly, make-believe race, leaving me and quite likely him with a sudden need for a swig of Pepto Abysmal.

I know iRacing must be hard, but I also know it requires no heroism, no responsibility, no knowing the pain of actually hitting a wall or having to fix what the driver tore up, or pay for it.

Of course they drive like lunatics. Talking like one was unexpected.

What seemed amazing to me didn’t seem like such a big deal to others.

Admittedly, this isn’t that unusual. I’ve never watched what others inexplicably call “reality” shows. This isn’t completely true, I guess. In the entire history of Conniver, America’s Got Balance and The Pretentious, I may have watched a grand total of 30 minutes, mostly by something approaching osmosis while sitting in a restaurant.

I may have gotten the names wrong. Whatever.

One aspect of life in the Age of COVID-19 is that we all are getting accustomed to Brand X.

Better safe than sorry, even when safe is sorry. A fan’s got to do what a fan’s got to do. It is what it is. Let me see if I can think of a few more redundancies. That’s racing (kind of). This iRacing is somewhat realistic, but if it really was, Kyle Busch would be better at it.

And if he was better at it, he’d be counting his wins in iRacing right along with Xfinity and Trucks. I’ve already heard that some of these iRacing virtuosos have won more races than Larry Phillips on the bullrings of Missouri.

Writing about racing is hard right now. Writing about anything isn’t easy. Lots of creativity gets fired from observations. Lately my observations have been mostly generated from the subject matter of an old Willie Nelson song.

Hello, walls. How’d things go for you today?

Forgive me if I reminisce. It appears there will be little about which to reminisce from the current year.

In lieu of racing, Fox Sports 1 is televising imaginary racing. Online racing live.

Realizing I am only writing for myself here, I’d rather watch online curling. Slow-motion curling. Black-and-white reruns of barrel jumping on Wide World of Sports. Battle of the Trump Administration Stars. Joe E. Brown in Earthworm Tractors.

Oh, wait. I did watch part of it last night.

​I knew it was a dream even while I was having it.

When I traded the red Ford Probe with the sunroof for a similarly red Ranger, Ryan Newman was 15. The present version of Clinton High School hadn’t been built yet. But there we were, Ryan and I, sitting next to each other in the circular common, chatting about NASCAR and a crash in Daytona Beach. George Strait’s “The Cowboy Walks Away” was playing. Turns out that was from the classic country channel of DirecTV, which I had activated to put me to sleep. Ryan said he had never heard Lynn Anderson’s “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” before. It was released seven years before his birth.

We lunched in the CHS cafeteria, then headed out to the parking lot where the Probe was parked, and I tossed him the keys, which I doubt I would ever do to a race driver when the car was mine. But Ryan was calm and we continued our chat as he idled along Duval Street in Key West.

NASCAR is changing next year. Big deal. NASCAR changes every year. Jonas Salk didn’t experiment as much with the polio vaccine.

But next year it’s changing a lot! The race cars aren’t going to have five lugnuts on the wheels! From the alarm from old-time fans, you’d think they’d eliminated wheels altogether and decided to race hovercraft in 2021.

Officials are also making the tires three inches wider. Tightening them with one centrally located connector will apparently keep the 18-inch tires sufficiently stable and, in turn, increase the ability of those tires to keep the cars stable and minimize wear.

None of this alarms me, though I am something of a traditionalist myself who has followed NASCAR all my life, dating back to attending my first Cup race before it was Cup, some 55 years ago in August.

A time for young fellas to carry umbrellas

And considering the climate, you really might find it

The right time to stay at home

Man, I hope not. NASCAR hopes not. The stock market hopes not. Anywhere where people gather hopes not.

The above are words from a fairly obscure Jerry Jeff Walker song. They come to mind as America confronts an epidemic – and potential pandemic – that could be endemic, but let’s hope not.