A flyer in the snail mail presented yet another topic on which I am – and, by extension, all Nashvillians are – apparently obliged to take a position. It came compliments of CARE, which stands for Citizens Against Racetrack Expansion for Nashville.

Right off the bat, the editor in me wants to argue that the group’s acronym should obviously be CAREN. But let’s set that aside for the moment and focus on the larger issue.

“Stand With Your Neighbors and Say No to NASCAR,” the flyer beseeches. It calls upon recipients to contact the mayor and council members and to ask for a “fair, transparent and balanced process to allow residents the chance to express their concerns over the expensive expansion.”

Opponents – CARENs? – do not want to see public spending on the project. They list four reasons:

• The $100 million price tag is too high.

• “We need to stop catering to the tourists and do more for those who live year-round in Nashville.”

• “There is already a NASCAR superspeedway 36 miles away for anyone who wants to enjoy racing.”

• NASCAR racing vehicles are loud. Real loud. Too loud.

My experience with NASCAR is this: I have twice been to Talladega, Alabama, to attend what was then known as the Winston 500, when it was still acceptable for cigarette companies to sponsor sporting events. The race requires 188 circuits of the 2.66-mile track to complete, as I mentioned to Daddy when I informed him of my impending first visit.

“What are you going to do for the last 187?” he asked. (Daddy had a way of saying things, without really saying them.) What I did not tell him, but which was the truth, was: Drink beer.

Drink beer, marvel at the 160,000 or so fellow attendees – many of whom were attractive women in minimal covering – and wait for the inevitable crashes and crackups. No one was badly hurt at the races I attended, but I do recall that one of the leading cars was airborne as it crossed the finish line at one of the races. “Bated breath” was created for such moments.

(A non-race benefit of the trip was eating at the original Dreamland Ribs in nearby Tuscaloosa, an experience akin to attending a worship service in Canterbury Cathedral. Which I’ve also done.)

This all took place 30-plus years ago, and I hadn’t given much thought to NASCAR or racing in general since then. I was aware of the Nashville racetrack at the Fairgrounds – there’s been motorized racing there since 1904, I gather – and used to occasionally hear the faint roar of the cars on race nights from my Green Hills home.

Then I moved to New York for 20 years, and the only faint roar reaching my house there came from the whistles of trains shuttling commuters like me to and from Manhattan. Not exactly the kind of whining low to inspire a Hank Williams song.

Since returning, I’ve been vaguely aware of a proposal to do something about the Fairgrounds racetrack. But until the flyer arrived, I’d also had the similarly vague idea that whatever that something was, it had already been done.

Now I realize that maybe I had it confused with the soccer stadium that was built in the vicinity. I wonder if the CARE folks opposed it, too, for fear of marauding soccer hooligans. (I was told once, by a bartender in Canterbury, that mixed cider and lager drinks – “snakebites” – often fuel those crowds.

The recent approval of the project by the Fair Board has moved the expansion a step closer to reality. And I can certainly appreciate how people who live near the racetrack would be apprehensive about the impact an expansion would have, both in terms of additional noise and additional traffic from what CARE describes as a potential doubling of the grandstands to accommodate 30,000 spectators.

After all, I’m not crazy about the vehicles, including city buses, that rumble too fast and too often and too near my own house.

But I also realize that I live in a dwelling I picked on a corner, and those people live in dwellings they picked near a racetrack. So I’m trying to be sympathetic, but also bearing in mind some words from the “Super Chicken” theme: “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.