Daytona Beach, Fla. ? The idiocy came from Jimmy Spencer’s lips a few weeks ago in Texas when he was asked about NASCAR opening its doors for the first time to a foreign-headquartered manufacturer and allowing Toyota to compete in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Dumbly, Spencer responded to reporters that the Japanese “bombed Pearl Harbor, don’t forget.”

Depressingly, Spencer’s red, white and skewed view of the world seems to be shared by far too many racing fans.

“One of most disappointing things is the number of negative e-mails I’ve gotten from people who can’t believe I’m working on a ‘foreign’ car,” said renowned NASCAR crew chief Larry McReynolds, now in charge of Toyota’s top truck team. “I guarantee you the same fans that are booing Toyota at the track will go home and turn on their Mitsubishi TV sets.”

Added Mike Skinner, a Toyota truck driver: “There are a lot of idiots raising Cain out there . . . . Some of these people need to get a life.”

Actually, they need to get a clue. God forbid the Japanese trucks ever finish 1-2-3 in a Craftsman race. If the track PA announcer ever says, “Toyota, Toyota, Toyota,” some of these people would only hear “Tora! Tora! Tora!”

You say “Camry driver,” and these dopes hear “kamikaze pilot.” You mention the name “Travis Kvapil,” and they hear “Tokyo Rose.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called a traitor,” said Kvapil, the defending Craftsman champion who’ll be driving one of the seven Toyota Tundras on the truck circuit.

Not to be mean, but some of these NASCAR fans are so ignorant, it takes them two hours to watch 60 Minutes. Do they realize Toyota is responsible for about 175,000 jobs in the United States and has made more than 10 million cars in its nine manufacturing plants in North America? In fact, an argument could be made that Toyota is just as American as Dodge, the company Spencer drove for last season. Dodge is owned by Chrysler, which recently merged with Daimler, a German automaker. That company’s international headquarters is in Stuttgart, Germany.

By Spencer’s logic, we should hold Chrysler partly responsible for the rise of Hitler.

“Jimmy Spencer better watch what he says,” McReynolds said. “One day, he might be wearing a Toyota uniform. Let’s see how Jimmy likes Toyota then.”

Maybe that’s what all these red, white and no-clue NASCAR fans are worried about — that Toyota will come into NASCAR and start dominating American racing just as it came into the United States and captivated the American buying public. Look it up: The top-selling car in America last year (and the year before) was none other than the Toyota Camry.

Let’s get in our time machine and venture 50 years into the future, when NASCAR has become the most popular sport on the planet. It is the year 2054, and the real world — and the sports world — looks much different.

We are 30 years removed from World War III — a war waged over the final 11/2 barrels of oil remaining in Yemen. The Toyotas, Nissans, Audis and Peugeots are dominating NASCAR’s global circuit with engines that burn soybeans and corn husks. NASCAR has moved its international headquarters to Switzerland to be more centrally located, and its best drivers are competing for the Deutsche Lufthansa Cup.

There is a huge controversy in the sport when news spreads that General Motors is making a return to NASCAR after a 40-year hiatus. The backlash among the intolerant is enormous.

“Don’t forget,” defending Cup champion Jacques Pierre Badeau of France says, “they bombed Baghdad.”