Since it’s the beginning of a new NASCAR season, let’s get this out of the way early on: I watch races. Not in their entirety, usually, but at least the last hour or so.

    It crept in slowly, as my husband took greater interest and Sunday afternoons had races in the soundtrack. I didn’t realize how accepting I had become until I was waiting to pull out of the Farmer Jack lot one day and saw an approaching car with “98” in the top right corner of the windshield. I didn’t think about the car being a 1998 out for a test drive. I thought, “98? Whose number is that?”

    Then realization smacked me upside the head and I was embarrassed, even without witnesses.

    I can’t listen to a race on the radio. I don’t care about anything but Nextel Cup, and I rarely watch an entire race. But I do watch them, and I do care who wins.

    For those who care (both of you), we watch Jeff Gordon. Then Hendricks in general. If they can’t win, it becomes Anybody But Junior (he’s good, but he ain’t his daddy) and Please Not Stewart.

    And for the record, when Jimmie Johnson took his victory lap after the Daytona 500, he made right turns.

    This post originally appeared on ourMidland.com, the online home of the Midland (MI) Daily News. Republished with permission.