Everyone who enters the infield will be required to wear cloth masks and since there will be no fans in attendance, NASCAR intends to use the entirety of the infields at both tracks to spread out the race teams to help with social distancing.
“We’ll be able to space out the car garages and not just the Cup garage, but the Xfinity and Gander Outdoor garage as well,” Bobo said. “We will have driver’s motor coaches there, but they will not be the driver owner lot. We’re spreading those motor coaches out to provide a place for drivers to self-isolate during the day.”
Bobo explained that the most important aspects of NASCAR’s plans are social distancing and compartmentalization. That includes one-way walkways and strict rules that could lead to anyone who fails to abide by them being asked to leave.
“If we have someone in the broadcast lot and they have no business in the garage, they don’t need to come into the garage and vice versa. We need to keep people out of work areas that they might normally get into,” Bobo said. “On pit road we are mandating that all our over the wall competitors have the fire crew sock masks. It’ll go from their nose down below their chin or they have to use the face screen that goes from above their eyes to below their chin. We are going to space out our spotters. Our spotters aren’t necessarily going to be on the roof, but they’re going to be across the top of the empty stadium so they all have six to 10 feet between them and they can play the important role that they play in the competition.”
One big question surrounding the events is qualifying and how the fields for each race will be set. Only one event — the Coca-Cola 600 on May 24 — will host a qualifying session prior to the race. There will be no practice or qualifying for the other races and O’Donnell said NASCAR is working on how the fields will be set for each of those events.
“So we are probably not ready to announce that because we’ve got a few different ideas,” O’Donnell said. “I think a good assumption will be to start off for the first race, that would be by points. So you’ll qualify based on points. So the lineup and same with picking pits, but we realize that as you go through events that’s not the best way to do things. So there’s some discussion going on now with the race teams and drivers about as you get to race two and three, are there some things we can do to mix it up a little bit around pit selection or possibly for race two to start that line up based on how you finished in race one. So more to come.
“We just want to flush out a few more things with the teams and make sure we’ve got the fairest possible lineups set.”
With NASCAR slated to be the first major sports league to return to competition as the country continues to battle COVID-19, O’Donnell acknowledged that it’s vital for the sanctioning body to do everything right.
“We realize up front that it’s a huge responsibility for us as a sport, but I’m also confident in the group we’ve gathered to put this plan together and our entire industry has come together to believe in the plan we’ve put together,” O’Donnell said. “We’re certainly gonna learn as we go, but the process that we’ve put in place, I think it gives the industry the confidence that we can be first and then we can do this in Darlington.”