The discussions in my NASCAR group often get hot and heavy because, not only are people passionate in their support of their favorite drivers, they are equally as passionate in their dislike of other drivers. And in NASCAR nation, I’ve discovered, the ultimate putdown is to declare, or at least insinuate, that a driver is gay.

The tone that’s used is often sneering and leering, like the ones sixth-grade boys might employ on a school playground. It’s supposed to be the conversation stopper, the one that positively wilts your opponent in her tracks. They wait in anticipation, as if expecting to see you melt into a puddle like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Coming from a background as I do of liberal politics and a personal life (cliché warning!) in which some of my best friends are gay, those conversational dum-dum bullets don’t have much impact. My answer is an electronic shrug. “So what?” I don’t think my driver, Jimmie Johnson, is gay, but I wouldn’t care one way or the other if he were.

Jimmie was the protégé of Jeff Gordon, one of NASCAR’s winningest drivers. Jeff is part owner of Jimmie’s car. Jeff was despised by many NASCAR fans because he took on, and often prevailed against, Dale Earnhardt, the icon of the sport. Dale Senior was big and brawny and aggressive, a self-proclaimed redneck. His nickname was The Intimidator.

Jeff was small and young and worst of all, originally from California (although the family moved to Indiana when he was still a child). His nickname was Wonder Boy. To NASCAR fan-atics, the coming of Jeff Gordon was not just a clash between two drivers but of two cultures. To show their antipathy for Jeff and what he stood for, they labeled him with terms that implied left coast gayness.

Then, to make matters worse, Jimmie came along — another cool kid from California without a southern accent — and started winning. So Jeff and Jimmie became, in NASCAR parlance, The Glitter Twins, as well as other euphemisms I can’t even repeat in a family newspaper. On YouTube, where just about anything goes, there is a whole sub-genre of videos about Jeff and Jimmie, proclaiming their supposed homosexual partnership. Someone went to a lot of effort to produce these little mini-movies with complementary images of racing cars, complete with rock and roll soundtracks.

In my group, they call Jimmie “Jeff’s wife” and MiniMe. I’m taken aback by all this. Not because they do it, but because they still think it matters. I sometimes feel as if I’ve been transported to the past in a time machine, maybe to the ’50s or early ’60s when blatant homophobia was commonly accepted. To me, NASCAR attitudes about sexual orientation appear to be several decades behind the times.

There was an incident once that involved a fan who loathed Jeff Gordon. He parked his motor home in the lot at one of the tracks and put up a huge billboard that consisted of a collage of men engaged in homosexual acts with Jeff’s face pasted on the bodies. Jeff and Jimmie and another driver, Eliot Sadler, drove a golf cart through the crowds to the motor home. They were going so fast, no one realized it was them until they were past. At the coach, they hopped off the golf cart. The man was shocked when he saw who it was. Jeff reached into his coat and pulled out ... a camera. He posed in front of the billboard while Jimmie took his picture, then they drove off laughing.

I doubt if the drivers take it very seriously that some fans don’t like them and call them what are meant to be demeaning names. They’ve been in the business of racing their entire adult lives and probably take it for granted that it’s the way things are in NASCAR.

I read that Jimmie has earned over $80 million dollars in his 10-year run in the Sprint Cup. I guess I could let people call me a lot of things for 80 million bucks. As I tell my group, “say whatever you want about him, I’m sure Jimmie’s crying all the way to the bank.”

Still, as a NASCAR newbie, I admit that it disturbs me when I’m faced with a mentality (and this is certainly not all or probably even a majority of NASCAR fans) that seems to find delicious pleasure in being deliberately hurtful to another group.

• Vicki Williams is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com.