Void of vans, NASCAR season set to start on May 17 with stepped up precautions in place – YourGV.com

On Thursday, officials from NASCAR announced they would return to racing at Darlington Raceway on May 17.

NASCAR will run seven events in three series at Darlington and Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Cup Series will begin on Sunday, May 17, with a 3:30 p.m. start time, and will follow that race with another Cup Series Race on Wednesday, May 20, again at Darlington with the midweek race beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The Cup Series will then move to Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 24, and will run the famous Coca Cola 600 starting at 6 p.m. On Wednesday, May 24, the Cup Series will race at Charlotte again with an 8 p.m. start time.

The Xfinity Series will race at Darlington on Tuesday, May 19, and in Charlotte on Monday, May 25. The Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series will race in Charlotte on Tuesday, May 26.

This is NASCARs start to the schedule, and they are continuing to work to secure races to complete the season as it was scheduled.

On Thursday, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve ODonnell and John Bobo, vice president of racing operations, held a teleconference with media to discuss the specifics of the decisions to begin live racing again.

The race will not have fans in attendance, and there also will be several precautions taken by NASCAR to ensure the health and safety of those that will be in attendance.

Bobo explained those steps in detail. To start, they are asking the teams, and other organizations that are coming to the race to self-monitor people for five days for symptoms before arrival. NASCAR also is asking them to fill out questionnaires before arrival and to have an initial screening of their temperature.

Additional screening will be done for essential personnel. Bobo said NASCAR has been working with the teams to try and limit the events to who can attend, and they are doing that by trying to move any operations off-site that they can.

Any personnel going into the infield will be required to wear cloth masks, and since there will be no spectators allowed they will be able to use the entire infield to spread out and adhere to social distancing. The drivers motor coaches will be in the infield but will be spread out much more than usual. They also are going to have one-way walkways, and Bobo said that anyone who does not comply with their rules for masks and social distancing would be removed from the premises.

They also will be monitoring the traffic coming into the garage area and making sure it is limited to essential personnel as well. The situation on pit road will be similar to the rest of the track, with all over-the-wall competitors required to wear fireproof sock masks or use the face screen.

Spotters will be spaced out with at least 6 to 10 feet between them. Temperatures also will be taken at random throughout the events as needed, and all symptomatic patients will be removed and given medical attention as needed. In that case they will be focusing on contact tracing and asking teams to keep logs of who theyve interacted with throughout the course of the day so they will be able to find out who theyve had direct exposure to in the case of a positive test.

NASCAR has taken tremendous steps to ensure the health and safety of all of those that will be participating in the events, and with them being the first major sports organization to go back to live events, all eyes will be on NASCAR and who they handle the situation.

As for what is next for NASCAR when it comes to where they will be headed is a work in progress. ODonnell said that they wanted to have events that were in driving distance for the employees and that Darlington and Charlotte worked out. Once they can get these races under their belt they are hoping that other states will ease restrictions and allow them to race at tracks at further distances.

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Void of vans, NASCAR season set to start on May 17 with stepped up precautions in place - YourGV.com