{"id":29372,"date":"2020-04-30T17:15:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T22:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=29372"},"modified":"2020-05-02T11:04:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-02T16:04:13","slug":"nascar-announces-may-17-to-mark-return-to-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/30\/nascar-announces-may-17-to-mark-return-to-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR announces May 17 to mark return to racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

NASCAR announced Thursday an initial short-term schedule, beginning with a NASCAR Cup Series race May 17 at Darlington Raceway, to mark the return to the track for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic brought sports to a halt in the middle of March.<\/p>\n

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(Photo by Sarah Crabill\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The schedule released Thursday includes a pair of NASCAR Cup Series races at the historic Darlington track on Sunday afternoon, May 17, and then on Wednesday night, May 20, with a NASCAR Xfinity Series event in between on Tuesday, May 19.<\/p>\n

The schedule then moves to Charlotte Motor Speedway where there will be NASCAR Cup Series races on Sunday, May 24, and Wednesday, May 27, with Xfinity Series and NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series events on May 25 and 26, respectively. The May 24 NASCAR Cup Series race is the traditional Memorial Day weekend Coca-Cola 600 and will be held at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

FOX or FS1 will televise all the races. Fans will not be permitted at the track, all the races will be one-day shows with no practice sessions, and qualifying will only take place for the Coca-Cola 600.<\/p>\n

The news of NASCAR\u2019s return was met with a welcome reaction on social media. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nearly impossible to create a perfect schedule, but @NASCAR worked hard and has done a great job to make racing happen again,\u2019\u2019 Team Penske driver Brad Keselowski immediately said on Twitter after the announcement. \u201cThings will look different when we return but the changes are necessary for the safety of everyone who makes our races successful, especially our fans.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

JTG Daugherty Racing\u2019s Ryan Preece was equally enthusiastic about the news, saying, \u201cI\u2019m pumped! We are going racing! I know @NASCAR has been working diligently on giving us all a safe environment to work\/race in. We all wish you could be there, but these are the extremely necessary precautions to take at this time. Let\u2019s go racing.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

In announcing the news, NASCAR said it had collaborated with public health officials, medical experts and state and federal officials in deciding when to resume competition.<\/p>\n

Safety measures will include the use of PPE by everyone at the track and health screenings for individuals before they arrive at track, while inside the facility and upon leaving it. Strict social distancing will be required, as well as limits on the number of people allowed into the facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASCAR and its teams are eager and excited to return to racing, and have great respect for the responsibility that comes with a return to competition,\u201d Steve O\u2019Donnell, NASCAR\u2019s executive vice president and chief racing development officer said in announcing the news. <\/p>\n

\u201cNASCAR will return in an environment that will ensure the safety of our competitors, officials and all those in the local community. We thank local, state and federal officials and medical experts, as well as everyone in the industry, for the unprecedented support in our return to racing, and we look forward to joining our passionate fans in watching cars return to the track.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell and NASCAR\u2019s Vice President for Racing Operations John Bobo met with the media Thursday afternoon to discuss more specifics, reiterating this development was a \u201cfluid situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand the tremendous responsibility that comes with this return,\u2019\u2019 O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cI do feel confident as an industry we have a schedule that we feel like we can pull off and we can pull off in a good way for the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The executives said the plan is still to run the full 36-race schedule, but said there will be some changes in venue and that details will be released before the first race back at Darlington. At this point, the 10-race Playoff portion of the schedule looks to remain intact, with the season finale events for all three series still set for the Nov. 6-8 weekend at Phoenix Raceway.<\/p>\n

As the series resumes competition, Stewart-Haas Racing\u2019s Kevin Harvick is the NASCAR Cup Series points leader, holding a one-point edge over Team Penske\u2019s Joey Logano, a two-time winner in the four races held to date.<\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin (Daytona 500), Logano (Las Vegas and Phoenix) and Alex Bowman (Las Vegas) are the race winners of the season.  Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Erik Jones is the most recent Darlington race winner, taking the traditional Labor Day win there last year.<\/p>\n

Stewart-Haas Racing\u2019s Xfinity Series driver Chase Briscoe summed up the excitement of Thursday\u2019s announcement via his social media account.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe racing is always crazy after a 2 hour rain delay, just wait until you see us after a 2 month delay. Can\u2019t wait.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service NASCAR announced Thursday an initial short-term schedule, beginning with a NASCAR Cup Series race May 17 at Darlington Raceway, to mark the return to the track for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic brought sports to a halt in the middle of March. The schedule released Thursday includes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":21459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-29372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-7DK","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/357599.jpg?fit=4981%2C3321","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29373,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29372\/revisions\/29373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}