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I don't get much inside information. A colleague drops by the house every month or so. Sometimes I meet someone for lunch while he's driving to Atlanta or Talladega. I talk on the phone with NASCAR chums. I swap the occasional smart-alecky texts. I’ve even succumbed to the stray Facebook message.

I bumped into Andy Petree at a local gas station. His daughter Jonnie plays softball at Presbyterian College. Carl Edwards called me on the phone a couple years ago. He asked how I was doing. I told him fine.

For the most part, though, since January 4, 2013 (not that I keep up with it or anything), I've been like you. I watch the races on TV. I still get lots of emails, which I should, because I still write about NASCAR here and elsewhere, but I put more work into the county's high schools than the country's stock cars, and more into writing fiction (coming soon: a western called Cowboys Come Home) than all the rest combined.

While the race cars roar into my living room via high-definition TV, my attention sometimes wavers. I have been known to spend an entire green-flag pit sequence making up verses to Hank Snow's "I'm Moving On" off the top of my head, strumming away at one of the two guitars leaning against the front of the couch (just in the off chance I break a string on one of them, which hasn't happened since I stopped using picks, a.k.a., plectrums).

Or perhaps the plural is plectra. (Thanks to the magic of a cell phone and wi-fi, I can now confirm this to be the case.)

I used to see the trees. Now I watch the forest. The latter perspective isn't as scary.

From here in town, and the perspective of the locals, I could write lots of country songs. It's a good idea because it beats arguing about Trump and Hillary, which now typically begins "I don't like neither one of them, but ..."

This is harder than it might be, mainly because Johnny Cash already wrote "I've Been Flushed Down the Toilet of Your Heart." Rest in peace, John. I know that started out as an additional verse of "I'm Moving On."

I knew that gal was quite a fool / When she tried to shove me down the stool / I'm moving on ...

Far be it from me, though, to despoil -- literally -- the reputation of the Singing Ranger, who, as you may know, went everywhere before he died at age 85 on May 9, 1999. This Samsung sure is handy for obscure information about Clarence Eugene Snow of Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. Pardon me if I'm sentimental ...

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Potential country songs about NASCAR. I wrote a real one called "Martinsville." It's on YouTube in several versions, all with poor sound, crowd noise and people walking past the camera carrying beer.

These aren't for real, though. Whole songs take too long. Lame titles? Not so much.

"Tire Changer Blues (Woman, Hell, I Can't Even Control a Racing Eagle)."

"Cut to the Chase (If'n I Can Get a Waiver)."

"I'm at the Tail End of the Longest Line (and I Ain't Got No Grammar)."

"Everything Is Beautiful (or That's What Michael Waltrip Says)."

"Out of My Way, Poor Boys (I'm A-Coming Through)."

"Wrecked at the Last Great Coliseum (Bristol Ain't No Friend of Mine)."

"I Brung My Briefcase (and I'm Ready to Race)."

"John Wes Townley Wrecks Me Weekly."

"Just How Many Races Has Kyle Got to Win?"

"Junior's Got a Concussion (and I Ain't Feeling So Hot My Ownself)."

"My Baby Don't Love Me No More (Since I Got in the Big One)."

"Danica's Getting Closer (and So Is the End of Time)."

So, yeah, I still love racing. It's amusing. It's like the old TV show Dragnet. Watch it as a drama and it's stupid. Watch it as a comedy and it's brilliant.

Like Larry McReynolds.