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Ryan Truex will pilot the ShopUSAPickleball.com Toyota in Martinsville this weekend.

Admit it, you had no idea what Pickleball was, did you? Neither did we. It is not StickBall, that game played by The Bowery Boys in all those 1940s and ‘50s movies, nor is it SpikeBall, that new game where you bounce a ball off a trampoline (so last year), nor even Cornhole, where you hurl a beanbag at a board and try to get it in the hole. And don’t even bring up Lawn Darts, a game so dangerous it was banned by the U.S. Product Safety Commission in 1988.

No, Pickleball is like midget tennis, played with flat plastic paddles and something akin to a wiffle ball. It was supposedly invented by three dads (natch) on Bainbridge Island in 1965, according to Pickleball pro Matt Goebel, in a pickleball promotional video put on by playpickleball.com. It is now the fastest-growing sport in America, Goebel said.

“It’s a combination of tennis, ping pong, and badminton,” he added. It’s played on a badminton court with a net two inches shorter than a tennis net. There’s even an International Federation of Pickleball, “The World Governing Body for the Sport.”

“Yeah, so, uh, where are you going with this,” you ask?

Straight to Martinsville Speedway, where NASCAR driver Ryan Truex will pilot the Pickleball-sponsored Toyota Supra in the Xfinity race there this weekend. Specifically, the sponsor is ShopUSAPickelball.com, your source for all pickleball-related needs, including Truex T-shirts with the ShopUSAPickleball.com Toyota with the team logo all over it.

“As the fastest growing sport in America, naturally, we were thrilled when MTJ Merchandising presented to us the ShopUSAPickleball.com car they had created for Ryan Truex of Joe Gibbs Racing to run in the Xfinity Series at Martinsville Speedway,” said Justin Maloof, USA Pickleball chief operating officer (there’s a COO?). “This unique opportunity provides us with yet another way to gain exposure for the sport and continue to introduce the game to more audiences as NASCAR enthusiasts tune in on Friday night on Fox Sports 1.”

Indeed, some say Pickleball could eventually supplant NASCAR as the activity of choice among urbane sophisticates. (Okay, no one’s saying that, but it looks like fun.)

“I’m looking forward to getting back behind the wheel of the No. 18 Toyota GR Supra on Friday night at Martinsville. Jason (Ratcliff) and the team at Joe Gibbs Racing continue to bring fast Toyota GR Supras to the track each weekend and I feel really confident that will continue at Martinsville," said Ryan Truex. "It’s really cool to have USA Pickleball and ShopUSAPickleball.com on our Toyota this weekend. As America’s fastest-growing sport, they are making their venture into NASCAR, and hopefully, we can go out and put on a good show for them and grab that first win of the season.”

If you're not yet one of the 4.8 million pickleball players across the nation, visit USAPickleball.org to learn how to play the game and follow @USAPickleball on Instagram and Twitter for live action from the track.

(Truex could do it: He’s ranked sixth on the grid at mybookie.ag, which lists odds for the race.)