NASCAR on Tuesday revealed the first phase of its strategy to reopen tracks to fans during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but it’s going to be an extremely conservative process at first.
The June 21 race at Talladega Superspeedway will allow up to 5,000 guests. There will also be limited motorhome camping spots available outside the track along the backstretch. Tickets were open on a first-come, first serve basis to fans who had previously purchased tickets or reserved camping spots for the originally scheduled April 26 event.
Grandstand tickets will be $40 each, tower tickets will be $50 each, with a maximum of six seats grouped together. Talladega Superspeedway has a seating capacity of 78,000 with 5,000 making up 7 percent of its total capacity.
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That event will take place one week after the Cup race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, which will feature up to 1,000 military and essential workers in its grandstands. Fans will not be permitted for the companion division races throughout the weekend.
Those permitted on the property for these events will be required to adhere to physical distancing requirements. Fans will be screened before entering the gates, a process that includes a non-contact temperature check and the competition of a health screening checklist.
Tailgating will not be allowed before or after the race and coolers will not be allowed inside the gates. Once inside the facility, fans cannot leave and then return again.
The tracks will also have open concession stands with pre-packaged sets priced from $2 to $5. The bagged options include sandwiches, salads, chips, candy, soda and beer. The transactions will be cashless: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
The tracks will be subjected to frequent cleaning across all high contact locations in the grandstand area.
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Daryl Wolfe — NASCAR’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operations and Sales Officer — says the league is excited to welcome fans back, but it intends to do it safely.
“I’ve always said I think we have the best fans in all sports,” Wolfe said. “They’re knowledgeable, passionate, loyal. They’re the reason we show up and race every week. They’re the energy that fuels the sport week in, week out, month by month, for the entire year.
“Plain and simple, today’s announcement is we want race fans back at our racetracks. Based on all of our interactions we’ve done so far, consumer research, independent conversations with ticketholders, overwhelmingly our race fans want to come back to the racetracks.
Having said that we also clearly understand that there is an immense responsibility here that comes with this exercise. We want to be very methodical, very measured, and we want to be cautious as we go through this.”
So, what comes next?
Wolfe and John Bobo, vice president of racing operations, conducted a media teleconference on Tuesday to outline the future of welcoming fans back to the track.
The most important quotes and details have been compiled below.
HOW DID NASCAR LAND AT 5,000 F0R TALLADEGA?
The process was a formula that took into consideration the following factors: Communication with local officials, medical experts, the desire to stay (for now) within a single percentage number of the overall capacity.
“You kind of mix all that together,” Wolfe said. “Assess what the right approach is, and that’s the number we landed on that we felt was the right number to kind of, again, go from Homestead to Talladega.”
Wolfe agreed NASCAR could have gone with higher number of fans for Talladega but wanted to land on the side of caution for now.
WILL OTHER RACES HAVE FANS?
That still remains an open question. The doubleheader weekend June 27 and 28 at Pocono Raceway will be held without fans. Watkins Glen published a schedule on Tuesday and revealed that its August 16 race will not have fans.
Indianapolis on Independence Day weekend will not feature fans. Kentucky on July 12 will not include fans. The All-Star Race at Charlotte on July 15 will not feature fans.
The first race that is currently to be determined is the July 19 race at Texas Motor Speedway. The race at Kansas on July 25 will not have fans, nor will the August 2 race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
HAS ANYONE TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID-19 SINCE THE SEASON RESUMED?
NASCAR would not confirm when asked if any competitor or official has tested positive.
Bobo: “A lot of that information is confidential, whether we have or we haven’t. We get that information from people that we work with. We will take all the responsible steps to make sure that we have advised the people that individual may have been in contact with of what’s needed.
“I think what’s unique about every COVID positive, each presents its own set of unique facts. What our policy is, when those things start to come in, we will work with people and our medical experts to see exactly who needs to be notified, what we need to do responsibly and work with any local officials if we need to.”
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