COMMENTARY: NASCAR Puts Necessary Teeth In Its At-Track Protocol

NASCAR issued a new technical bulletin yesterday, putting some teeth in the sanctioning body’s newly announced COVID-19 event protocol. 

Race teams were issued a lengthy list of policies and procedures late last week that will govern their May 17 return to competition at Darlington Raceway, as well as subsequent events. That protocol includes a major reduction in the number of team members allowed to attend each race event, multiple health and temperature checks before, during and after each race, controlled entry and egress from the garage area and mandatory masks and social distancing for all personnel. 

Yesterday, NASCAR made it clear that they take those guidelines seriously, warning that Cup Series personnel who fail to comply can be fined between $10,000 and $50,000. Violations in the Xfinity Series garage will result in fines of $5,000 to $25,000, with Truck Series offenders docked between $2,500 and $12,500.

There is a reason why the powers-that-be in Daytona Beach are taking their new mandates so seriously. 

The world is quite literally watching right now, and how NASCAR and its members conduct themselves in the coming weeks could play a major role in determining whether more states relax their stay at home restrictions and allow NASCAR (and other professional sports) to return to the playing field. 

North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida have led the way in that regard, becoming the first states to relax their standards and allow NASCAR racing to resume. When the cars return to the track at Darlington, they will do so as part of a single-day program that includes no practice, no qualifying and no fans in the grandstands. 

It is imperative that our sport get it right at “The Track Too Tough To Tame,” and in the days that follow at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

If people play fast-and-loose with the guidelines set forth by NASCAR to keep them healthy, they are quite literally jeopardizing the short-term future of the sport. It wasn’t easy for NASCAR to make its way back to the track, as the first professional sport to return to competition. The necessary state and federal officials have all given their thumbs-up to the plan with varying degrees of trepidation, and not everyone agrees with the decision to do so. The Governors of North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida have faced considerable criticism since NASCAR’s plan was announced, from those who consider our return to competition to be premature, ill-advised and even downright dangerous.

If our sport fails to follow the guidelines and procedures set forth – or even worse, returns home from Darlington with new cases of Coronavirus – the Governors of those states can (and will) shut things down again, as quickly as they allowed them to restart.

After Darlington and Charlotte, reliable sources say that additional races are planned for Martinsville Speedway on May 31, Bristol Motor Speedway on June 3, Atlanta Motor Speedway on June 7 and Homestead Miami Speedway on June 14. Those events have not yet been formally announced, as the sanctioning body reportedly waits for the official go-ahead from Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, whose timeline for reopening his state is a good deal more conservative than that of his counterparts in the Carolinas and Florida.

What happens in the next three weeks can play a major role in helping him make up his mind.

NASCAR has a golden opportunity to prove to prove to Gov. Northam and others that it is competent, trustworthy and capable of policing itself and keeping its people safe in the midst of a pandemic. Success on that front will almost certainly open additional doors; both for NASCAR and perhaps even society in general. 

For better or worse, our sport has taken on the role of the nation’s guinea pig, and this is a test that we cannot afford to fail.

On the off chance that there is a crew member or two who fail to take that responsibility seriously, the prospect of a $10-50,000 fine should reinforce the message quite nicely.