INDIANAPOLIS — President Donald Trump wants to reopen the economy. He wants to do so sooner, rather than later. Trump, would love to have us all eventually being able to come out of our homes and get back to a somewhat normal routine. But, in order to do so, our new routine starting out, well it won’t be like the old one that we were accustomed to doing more than five weeks ago.

Part of the restart plan of the United States is for sports to resume sometime soon. But, if sports are to start back up again, it’s going to look a lot different too. If we are to witness sporting events any time soon, it’s going to be in the comforts of our homes with us having to trade aluminum bleachers for a comfy seat on the couch.

That’s going to be a new norm.

It’s pretty clear most governors around this great nation of ours want to reopen their states and they’re willing to host events like ones in the world of sports. But, they’re also not going to do so with fans in attendance either.

So, while NASCAR announced last Friday that their date at the Martinsville (VA) Speedway in three weeks has now been postponed, they did shed some clarity on when we could see a return.

Virginia is under a stay-at-home order until June 10. Having a NASCAR race in the Commonwealth a full month before that protocol ends wasn’t ever going to happen. Despite that, they did shed come light in their statement on Friday on a new plan moving forward.

Yes, their statement was a bit vague on that saying that their next location is basically TBD. But, they did say that the plan is to race next month and to do so without fans too. If you’ve been paying attention, you’d notice the next race on the calendar is May 24 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. On Thursday, North Carolina’s governor tweeted out his new plan and part of that was to hold sporting events without fans for a while.

NASCAR says that they plan on racing next month without fans. We have a track (Charlotte Motor Speedway), that just so happens to be next up on the schedule (May 24), with a governor saying he’s willing to hold sporting events inside of his state without fans.

It’s a perfect match.

The only issue is, North Carolina is under a stay-at-home order through April 29. That could get extended. The race teams aren’t essential and need to get approval from the state government to return to work under this order. So far, the legislature is working together to attempt to make this happen. Five congressmen have expressed their interest in NASCAR returning to action for the Coca-Coal 600 next month.

As the COVID-19 curve has taken a turn towards the good direction, if we keep going this way, there’s no reason why NASCAR can’t hold a race in Charlotte in five weeks.

I mean, it makes even more sense with most teams residing in the Charlotte area anyways.

Then, NASCAR’s tentative schedule, one version of it at least, keeps Kansas as the second race up next. NASCAR can race at Kansas on the last weekend in May without fans too. That track has two dates and holding the first race without fans would not be ideal, but it would be the new norm for now in hopes of their second race being able to be held with fans in attendance.

After that, is a unique situation. One version has the Texas Motor Speedway as the third race after the resumption. That race would run in conjunction with the IndyCar race weekend as well. The NTT IndyCar Series would race on Saturday night and the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday afternoon. It would be the first time the two have shared a weekend and would do so a full month ahead of their next shared weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July.

While Texas has stated that they don’t want to hold a race without fans in their stands, they may not have any other choice. Plus, holding an IndyCar race without fans in the stands doesn’t gain the track any money. They don’t receive any TV money from IndyCar. But, they do with NASCAR and their lucrative TV deals. So, if you have both share the weekend, it’s now profitable for all parties and can get IndyCar back up and running again too.

From there, it would all be up in the air, but that’s still two months down the road and if we keep improving as a country, maybe we can hold a few more races without fans before allowing them back in later in the year.

For NHRA, they too can start that first weekend in June as their plan is for the Gatornationals to take place June 7 in Florida. The Sunshine state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said that he’s in favor fan-free sporting events being held inside of his state and even singled out NASCAR as a possibility.

“Like if NASCAR does a race and can televise it without having large crowds, I think that’s a good thing,” DeSantis said in a recent interview. “I think people have been starved for content. We haven’t had a lot of new content since the middle of March.”

So, having an NHRA event in early June without fans can work as well, which means they can get back up and running. They then would go to Houston (TX), Bristol (Tenn) and Norwalk (OH) the next three weeks after. Could any of those races be held without fans? That’s up in the air next.

There’s also a plan for NASCAR to race at Homestead in May too without fans which according to their governor above, that is going to be allowed to happen. Charlotte makes the most sense to happen first but don’t be shocked if Homestead is right before or shortly after either.

IMSA would be next to resume in late June where Formula One appears to be the most affected. Right now, the French Grand Prix appears to be in doubt. They have a ban on mass gatherings until mid-July. The 24 Hours of Le Mans as well as the Tour de France have been rescheduled. Why wouldn’t F1’s weekend?

That would put them as a start date in early July in Austria who says that they could race without fans. The second round then would be in England and they too are shifting focus of racing without fans as well. The British Grand Prix is also working with potentially hosting a doubleheader weekend or even two straight weeks of action in Silverstone.

See a theme?

Racing is trying to get back going and all plans are doing so at venues who can withstand the financial loss of fans. I get now that fans would want to know when they can return to a race again, but if you’re going down that route, I don’t see how that’s going to happen until the Fall at the very soonest.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a recent interview that there’s “no way of doing that” in terms of sports returning to action any time soon with fans in the stands before the Fall.

There’s not going to be a recommendation to open the gates back up by him. That’s not a surprise either, because in this day and age during the novel virus, it’s unfortunately going to be highly difficult to host an event with that many people for the foreseeable future. There’s no vaccine made yet and from what the leading doctors are saying, there won’t be an effective one until at least 2021 at the earliest. With that mindset, think of the legal battles you could face if you open the gates of a race track and even one person tests positive from the virus later on and they were there in attendance.

Without a vaccine and without knowing how we can prevent this from spreading other than practicing social distancing, how can you just ignore CDC warnings and hold a race in front of thousands of fans anyways?

Will this virus wipe off the face of the Earth by late summer? Doubtful. Even if the curve keeps slowing and we start getting back to normal more and more as the days go by, what’s to say that that the curve doesn’t go back up yet again? There is absolutely no guarantee anywhere that this thing will fully go away and that the spread will become minimal and less deadly. The only way that we can mitigate this to the fullest is to keep social distancing and hope for a vaccine.

So, the racing world is just going to adapt and have to hold races without fans for a while. The clarity is becoming more and more clear now too.