CRANDALL: Five things to watch when NASCAR returns to racing

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | 3 hours ago

The wait for race cars to be back on the racetrack is down to a matter of days.

All eyes will be on NASCAR this Sunday afternoon with a 400-mile Cup Series race at the rough and tough Darlington Raceway. It will be the first race NASCAR has held in over two months, and the first test as to whether it can hold races safely and effectively during a pandemic.

There will be no practice and no qualifying. The grandstands will be empty, and Darlington’s infield a near ghost town except for the essential personnel needed to run a race. Drivers are going to show up and rev up their 550-horsepower engine for a highly-anticipated dash into Turn 1, and a possible step toward rediscovering ‘normal’ after COVID-19 changed not only the entire American sports landscape, but everyday life.

Here are five things to watch as the engines fire back up:

1. Racing with restrictions

What happens during this unprecedented stretch of seven races in 11 days will be heavily scrutinized. There is tremendous pressure to get the sport restarted for the financial health of its competitors, but to do so safely and without compromising the integrity of the competition.

Does NASCAR have the best protocols in place? Unfortunately, the events need to run before we know the answer.

These races will run on a scaled-back level. Viewers will not see multiple pit reporters running around the infield, and the Fox broadcast booth will call the race from the Charlotte studio, as they have done for the iRacing events. Photography and independent media presence will be minimal. Teams are limited to 16 people per roster.

“I think it’s a big factor in terms of getting it right,” said NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell. “We realize upfront 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. Our entire industry has come together to believe in the plan we’ve put together.

“We’re certainly going to learn as we go. But the process we put in place, I think, gives the industry the confidence that we can be first, we can do this in Darlington.”

NASCAR has made itself the guinea pig for showing whether it’s possible to safely, effectively, and in the most basic manner, put on a live sporting event. Should it work, there will be plenty of satisfaction to go around and lessons to share about how it is possible to return to some sense of normalcy. If it goes wrong, there will be plenty of criticism about putting people at risk in the interests of rushing back to competition.

2. An opportunity to learn

Undoubtedly, NASCAR’s return is going to pop a nice TV rating. With most of the sports world still on pause and the country hungry for any new content, NASCAR being one of the first live events back on television should create interest. Considering the circumstances, though, those numbers should be viewed with caution.

Fans are anxious for racing to return, and when Darlington serves that up on Sunday, that desire will be reflected in the ratings. Then comes the mid-week races for both Darlington and Charlotte.
However hungry they may be for racing, fans will be consuming it differently. Image by Barry Cantrell/Motorsport Images

How realistic and attractive are more mid-week races? There have been Wednesday night Truck Series races at Bristol and Eldora before. But now, the Cup Series gets to take center stage in back-to-back weeks, and in prime time. The Xfinity Series will do so early in the week, on a Tuesday in Darlington, and a Monday at Charlotte.

Another area for NASCAR President Steve Phelps and his team to look at will be the condensed schedule for all three series: a show-up-and-race approach. Officials have canned all practice and qualifying (except for the Coke 600), meaning teams won’t be spending hours upon hours at the track refining every inch of their machines. Drivers will jump into their cars and go.

The prospect of practice or qualifying being banished forever is unrealistic, but can these events demonstrate how much more NASCAR can trim out to make weekends more valuable? How much practice is too much? Are there unnecessary gaps in weekend schedules? Are races too long?

It won’t hurt to use this time to look around and wonder if the at-track process can be more streamlined.

3. Ryan Newman returns

There was at least one benefit to NASCAR being on hiatus, and that was Ryan Newman having time to recover from injuries suffered in a last-lap crash in the Daytona 500. Now medically cleared to compete again, Newman has only missed three races and, through the admission of a playoff waiver, remains championship-eligible should he make the postseason.

Based on the information that Roush Fenway Racing has released, and Newman’s own social media presence, he seems no worse for the wear. Whether or not he is a different driver after experiencing a traumatic crash and injury has yet to be seen. Still, the Indiana native is one of the toughest, elbows-up drivers in the garage, and not just because of his reputation for the way he races.

Committed to winning races and competing for the championship with his No. 6 team, Newman is going to slot right back into the field as if he were never gone. Before COVID-19 forced many into mandatory quarantine, Newman was able to get re-acclimated to his car for a medical test at Darlington, which was said to have gone well.