By Jerry Jordan, Editor
After being on hiatus for two months due to the COVID-19 outbreak across the country, NASCAR will return to real-life racing on May 17 at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina.
Since racing was canceled as teams were descending on Atlanta Motor Speedway in March, NASCAR has taken to pixelated tracks and used the iRacing platform for an eNASCAR Series. It is a good stopgap but by no means virtual racing the same as asphalt action. Now, that will change, according to NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer, Steve O’Donnell, who said there will be two Cup Series events at Darlington with an Xfinity Series race sandwiched between.
NASCAR Return Schedule:
“The 17th we’ll open up at Darlington, 400‑mile race,” O’Donnell said. “That race will include live pit stops. It was important for us to be able to showcase a race as close to what normally takes place as possible. But it was also important for us to minimize what activity took place leading up to the event. That’s why we don’t have practice or qualifying prior to that event.
“The same thing will be in place Tuesday when we go back to Darlington for the Xfinity race. No practice or qualifying, 200‑mile race. Then Wednesday we’ll go back with the second Cup race, 500 kilometers.”
Following the Wednesday race, NASCAR goes back home to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600. And there will be live qualifying for that event. Going forward, NASCAR will develop a method for qualifying that isn’t based on points.
“We’re not ready to announce that because we have a few different ideas,” O’Donnell said.
To comply with local, county and state regulations, NASCAR has also put forward a comprehensive plan for testing, monitoring and follow-up for anyone at the track. That includes drivers, crews, owners, media and officials. Part of the plan includes temperature monitoring before, during (if needed) and after events. Teams are encouraged to keep at-track crew away from race shops and vice versa. The idea is to prevent someone who might be exposed at a track from spreading COIVD-19 to shop employees. NASCAR will also call and check-up on people to ensure they are healthy following events.
“As we developed a plan, we were in discussion with public health officials,” John Bobo, vice president of racing operations. “We continue to be in conversations with public health officials in South Carolina and North Carolina. We realize that as we are guests in each community, as we prepare for these events, we’re going to keep a close eye on the trends as they develop, knowing our plans can be contingent on those events, pandemic related.
“Events are going to look different than they have in the past. The way we travel to the event, the way we enter the event, move about in the event, the way we leave an event is going to be different. We’re asking teams and all of our participants, organizations, to self‑monitor people for five days for symptoms before they arrive. We’re asking them to fill out a questionnaire and initial screening for temperature. Concerns after that, they will go into secondary screening with medical personnel, which will include heart rate, pulse oxygenation. Medical personnel will make decisions at that point. We’ll also go through an additional screening for essential personnel. We’ve been working with the teams on a roster system to make sure the event is limited as to who can attend. If there’s any operations we can move off‑site, that’s what we’re trying to do to limit the event. Everybody going into the infield is going to be wearing cloth masks as they move about. Since there will be no spectators, no fans in the infield, we’ll be able to use the entire infield to space out and socially distance. We’ll be able to space out the car garages, not just the Cup garage, but the Xfinity and Gander Outdoor garage as well. We’ll have drivers’ motor coaches there, but not in a driver/owner lot. We’re spreading those out to provide a place for drivers to self‑isolate during the day.”
Bobo explained that social distancing and compartmentalization of personnel will be paramount and those not needing access to certain areas of the track won’t be allowed in. The idea is to decrease as much personal interaction as possible.
“We’re going to have one‑way walkways for people, our rules strictly enforced,” Bobo said. “If people aren’t complying with our rules for masks and social distancing, they will be removed from the premises.
“On pit road, we are mandating all over‑the‑wall competitors have at fireproof sock mask that will go from their nose down below their chin, or they have to use the face screen from above their eyes to below their chin. We’re going to space out our spotters. Our spotters aren’t necessarily going to be on the roof but across the top of the empty stadium, all six to 10 feet between them. They can play the important role they play in the competition.”
KEY SAFETY POINTS MENTIONED BY JOHN BOBO:
- Temperatures will be taken randomly throughout the event of people as needed.
- Symptomatic patients will be processed and removed from the event and given medical attention if needed.
- Post-race we’re going to stagger people’s exits
- We’ll be looking at temperature and other factors as they leave.
- We’re also requiring all the teams to disinfect as needed and we’ll even seal haulers and things like that to make sure as they go to the next event, they’re safe.
- We set up lines of communication for every participant to reach out to us on lessons learned after the event, so we can get better and smarter on each successive race as we go forward.
There won’t be any at-track testing for COVIC-19 at this time but NASCAR is looking into antigen testing going forward. Bobo said, rapid tests and the more-traditional two-day tests need to be reserved for people most in need around the country.
Another priority for NASCAR will be what is called “contact tracing” where they will monitor anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 and then try to determine who they may have been in contact with.
“We are asking teams and participants to keep a log of who they’ve interacted with throughout the course of a day so if we have a positive post-race we can figure out who they were in direct exposure with and ask those people to isolate for 14 days,” he said.
As the season progresses and NASCAR looks to flesh out a new schedule for racing, there will be several upcoming changes. Some tracks will lose a race and others will gain one or two events. There is a guarantee of, at least, two, maybe three doubleheaders, like what was already planned for Pocono Raceway this year.
“I would say outside of the first four Cup events, I’ll just speak to Cup right now, the goal for us is the next I’d say three events we would like to be drivable as well,” O’Donnell said. “Once you get beyond that we do have states that have said, ‘Hey, we’re good to go racing.’ (Texas, Florida and Atlanta have all announced they would welcome NASCAR.) But our goal was to get at least seven, or so, events under our belt, drivable, learn as we go, not have to put people on planes if we could avoid that. Once we get beyond those, I think you’ll see us move in – keep using the word ‘fluid’, but it is – once you get beyond those seven events we feel like we’ll be ready to continue to look at races where we may be able to travel.
“I would say at the point our intent is to keep Pocono as a doubleheader, and for that to be the first scheduled kind of Saturday, Sunday doubleheader. I think it is fair to assume as you get deeper into the schedule you may see one if not two more additional doubleheaders in the schedule, especially on the Cup side.”
But don’t expect NASCAR to alter the schedule to a point that doesn’t include tracks that aren’t already on it. In other words, at this time, there are no plans to run Road Atlanta instead of Watkin’s Glen, even though Watkin’s Glen might be eliminated because it is in a hot zone for the COVID-19.
“I think our first priority was to look at the tracks on the schedule and see if there was a way to accommodate the schedule with those tracks,” So, that was our first priority. Fortunately, as of today, we’ve been able to do that. We’ve certainly had discussions around that with all of our series. At this point, we’re going to remain at the tracks that have been part of the three national series.”
So, what does all this mean for fans? At this time, the answer on when fans can return to the track is unknown; however, O’Donnell said the sanctioning body wants to fill the grandstands as soon as safely possible.
“I think that’s still a work in progress,” O’Donnell said. “Our priority right now is to try and get back racing in a safe way. I think certainly the NASCAR fan is passionate, and we want to conduct events with fans any chance we can get. But until we believe that it’s a safe environment, and we can work with the local and state communities to make that happen, we’re going to wait until we get that okay.”
As for changes to the end of the season and where the championship race will be held, O’Donnell had previously – possibly jokingly – said that there were 65 different revisions for schedules and plans for the sport going forward. With the changes and alterations made, at this point, it appears Phoenix Raceway retains its championship event.
“I would say on versions probably 40 through 55 we extended through December,” he said. “Then things have changed. It’s backed up. As of today, we expect the Playoff calendar to stay intact on the Cup side where we had it ending at the beginning of the year. Again, that could change if some things happen, but that is our intent right now.”
NOTEWORTHY:
- The ARCA Menards Series General Tire 150 scheduled for Friday, May 22, at Charlotte Motor Speedway has been postponed until a later date. “We look forward to resuming our season soon and will share more details at the appropriate time,” read a statement from the series.
- Plans for media coverage and attendance are still being worked out and could include a pool scenario to accommodate as many media outlets as possible.
- Crews will be limited to a maximum of 16 per team.
- The Xfinity and Truck series will also see scaled-back numbers on crews and alterations to their schedules. However, those races will include live pitstops but no practice or qualifying.
- The intent is to run all points races previously on all NASCAR schedules.