INDIANAPOLIS — NASCAR is coming back. We knew a May return was likely coming, but what we didn’t know is how realistic the rumored May 17 date would be. Last Thursday, we found out. It not only was realistic, it’s going to happen.

NASCAR will invade South Carolina three times over a span of four days with two Cup dates (May 17, May 20) and an Xfinity Series race on May 19. Then, they’ll move to Charlotte for two more Cup races (May 24, May 27), one more NXS race (May 25) and the Truck Series season resumption on May 26.

Seven races in 11 days. That’s all great, but many are now wondering, what’s next?

Well, while NASCAR has a plan, 65 of them to be exact, they know this situation past May is still fluid. If all goes the way that they envision, they will still get all 36 Cup Series races in this season. So far, we’re four races in with 32 more to go. With four races in May, that means we’d get 28 more races left.

NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O’Donnell said that the plan they have in place now is for the season to not get extended past Nov. 8. That’s the final scheduled race at the Phoenix Raceway which will award a season champion that day. He also said that the plan is to keep the 10 race playoffs intact and to still have the regular season cutoff race at the Daytona International Speedway.

“You will see Daytona in that same slot is our hope, as the last race before the Playoffs,” O’Donnell said. “I would say on versions probably 40 through 55 we extended through December.  Then things have changed.  It’s backed up.  As of today we expect the Playoff calendar to stay intact on the Cup side where we had it ending at the beginning of the year.

“Again, that could change if some things happen, but that is our intent right now.”

He went on to say, “The schedule we feel like we have a schedule mapped out for all three series that gets us through Phoenix.  We feel like it’s pretty well baked.  We feel like we’ve had the right cadence with where states are, where health officials may be.  Certainly we have backups to backups to backups.

“I would say we started about seven pencils and a lot of erasers and have moved to pen now in terms of saying to our broadcast partners and tracks that this is what we believe we can collectively do.  The industry is there, as well.

“But until we are racing and until we see how things take place, until we see how this virus affects things down the road, we can’t say for sure.

“I do feel confident as an industry we have a schedule that we feel like we can pull off and we can pull off in a good way for the fans.”

So, if this remains true to plan, then we know the schedule from Aug. 29 through Nov. 8 will consist of Daytona, Darlington, Richmond, Bristol, Las Vegas, Talladega, Charlotte (ROVAL), Kansas, Texas, Martinsville and Phoenix.

Between June and Mid August, well that could be where some more changes occur. We know that NASCAR has four races run, four scheduled for May and 11 at the end of the year. If the plan is to still run all 36 races, that leaves 17 races left to race over a span of three months. There’s 12 weekends available to get those 17 races in, so that means some doubleheaders and more weeknight races, right?

“I would say at this point our intent is to keep Pocono as a doubleheader, and for that to be the first scheduled kind of Saturday, Sunday doubleheader,” O’Donnell said. “I think it is fair to assume as you get deeper into the schedule you may see one if not two more additional doubleheaders in the schedule, especially on the Cup side.”

So, that’s two races, which brings us to 15 more to figure out. We know we’ve lost eight races this spring due to COVID-19 (Atlanta, Homestead, Texas, Bristol, Richmond, Talladega, Dover and Martinsville). With two additional races at Darlington and the Southern 500 remaining on the schedule in September, mixed with an additional race at Charlotte and no races taken away for the future for them, that means an elimination of three already scheduled races. That’s the next factor in play here.

“What I would say is those decisions have been made,” said O’Donnell on which tracks are losing dates. “We’re not ready to announce those.  That’s not to hide the ball.  That is to make sure that we can have proper communication not only with those tracks and the personnel, which I’m sure you can appreciate, but we have a lot of fans in those areas.

“For the couple tracks where we need to move an event, we want to do that in the right way.  We will certainly disclose that to the media, the race teams and the fans will know ahead of time before we get to Darlington.  We just want to take a little time here before we’re able to announce.

In terms of when to announce that, O’Donnell said, “I’d say in the coming weeks is fair.  We’ve assured the industry that prior to Darlington they’re going to know.  There’s obviously sponsor implications of events that they may have sold.  We have to disclose those, purse implications.  We want to make sure we do it in the right way for the local fan base for those particular events.”

So, no doubleheaders in the playoffs and Pocono being the first weekend doubleheader. Those are crucial because out of the tracks that missed a spring race, Texas, Bristol, Richmond, Talladega and Martinsville are all in the playoffs too. They won’t be able to make any of those dates up in the Fall.

So, how many of them get made up? Well, lets look at the clues given to us so far. NASCAR isn’t willing to do any fly away races until the first seven are in. They’d prefer to stay close to the Charlotte area, the place most of these teams are based.

Darlington, is 91 miles away from Charlotte. I think most of the races missed this spring, can not only get made up, they can be made up in June in fact.

Martinsville (VA) Speedway is the second closest track in proximity to Charlotte at 128 miles away. They missed their May 8 race. Bristol (Tenn) Motor Speedway is third at 156 miles away. They missed their April date. Atlanta Motor Speedway is next at 274 miles away while Richmond Raceway (298) miles is after.

Virginia has a stay at home order through June 10 and has now extended their phases. The soonest they could host a sporting event is July 13, so that basically eliminates Martinsville and Richmond before then. Tennessee and Georgia though have already lifted stay-at-home orders and phasing their states back open though. Then, read what O’Donnell said about racing soon at Atlanta.

When asked this question, “You mentioned tracks.  Georgia has been opening up.  Atlanta drivable from Charlotte.  Is it fair to say that’s part of the mix soon?

“That would be fair,” he said. 

It would make sense to race Bristol, which is only three hours away from Charlotte during the week then go to Atlanta that weekend.

That makes up two of the eight missed. I’d also not be too surprised to see a race at Talladega in June since they’re the next closest at 347 miles, or roughly five hours away from Charlotte.

That would be three of the eight made up by the end of June. Plus, you could make up Dover later as they can run a doubleheader weekend. They’re close enough to Charlotte (497 miles) or around eight hours, to run two races in a weekend and get back rather easily. Remember, he said 1-2 more doubleheader weekends past Pocono, so Dover would qualify. That would give us half of the eight postponed races made up.

The only other tracks to qualify for a doubleheader weekend without “adding a race” would just be Michigan which they likely are to lose their June date, so a make up in August on their second date would be realistic.

So, with these possible scenarios now made, where do we stand?

Four races already run (Daytona, Vegas, Fontana, Phoenix), four more races set to run in May (Darlington x2, Charlotte x2), a June of likely Atlanta, Bristol and Talladega, a Pocono, Dover and Michigan doubleheader and the final 11 races remaining in tact.

That’s 28 of 36 races known. That leaves eight more rounds open for July-August. The tracks left to make up a race are Richmond, Martinsville Homestead and Texas. We know Texas, Richmond and Martinsville can’t host doubleheader weekends later on in the year.

I do think Homestead can be made up in June too as they’re 11 hours away and if the closer races pan out, they’re close enough for an overnight visit and get back. Florida is a willing state to host races without fans, so I think we get a visit to South Florida some time in June too giving us one race to make up from the already postponed list. Kansas and Sonoma though will join that list as there’s no way Kansas hosts a race at the end of this month and Sonoma in the middle of the next one.

Again, Richmond, Martinsville, Kansas and Texas can’t host doubleheaders due to hosting playoff races. We have seven races left to schedule in a seven week span. Hmm, how ironic to see how that works out.

You can fit these in with Indianapolis (July 5), Kentucky (July 8 *weeknight), maybe move Michigan’s doubleheader weekend up to July 11-12 and visit Chicagoland on July 15. It would be a midwest extravaganza where the haulers may not need to come back to Charlotte. That fills in three more races not already scheduled and leaves us with four races left to fill.

Here’s the tracks left to fill those four — Richmond (1), Martinsville (1), Sonoma, Watkins Glen, New Hampshire, Texas (1), Kansas (1).

New word is, NASCAR is wanting to take a road course, short track and intermediate away to make up for the three additional races added. Sonoma would be the road course and Kansas the 1.5-mile track. Richmond and Martinsville would be the short track likely losing a race, with all signs now pointing to Richmond due to Martinsville being the second closest track to Charlotte. If we have to add any more races, Watkins Glen would likely be next up on the chopping block.

Here’s what I would guess a tentative schedule looks like and again, this is only speculation and taking what they’re giving us. This gives a few breaks actually in order to potentially move the schedule up or back as well.

May 17 – Darlington

May 20 – Darlington

May 24 – Charlotte

May 27 – Charlotte

May 31 – Atlanta (make up spring race)

June 3 – Bristol (make up spring race)

June 7 – Talladega (make up spring race)

June 14 – Homestead (make up for spring race)

June 21 – Texas (make up spring race)

June 27 – Pocono

June 28 – Pocono

July 5 – Indianapolis

July 8 – Kentucky

July 11 – Michigan

July 12 – Michigan

July 15 – Chicagoland

Aug. 2 – New Hampshire

Aug. 15 – Martinsville (make up for spring race)

Aug. 22 – Dover

Aug. 23 – Dover

Aug. 29 – Daytona

Playoffs

Sept. 6 – Darlington

Sept. 12 – Richmond

Sept. 19 – Bristol

Sept. 27 – Las Vegas

Oct. 4 – Talladega

Oct. 11 – Charlotte (ROVAL)

Oct. 18 – Kansas

Oct. 25 – Texas

Nov 1 – Martinsville

Nov. 8 – Phoenix

Now, when can fans return. The short term answer is not any time soon. The long term answer is no one knows. What we do know is the novel vaccine isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Yes, cases have dropped across the country but they’re still high. There’s not going to be an effective vaccine at any point of 2020. That’s a fact. So, how can you race in front of fans when the spread could still occur. 

The reason the spread is lower than the initial models showed is due to social distancing mitigation that was put in place. It’s worked. How can we come out of that any time soon? I don’t see large crowds being allowed for the foreseeable future, so with NASCAR looking to host races close to base in states that are willing to host events without fans, the easiest answer to this is, I don’t see any time before July we can witness races in person and even that date is in question.

There’s a chance experts are saying of a fall resurgence again, so even as we lax some restrictions, I don’t know how we can have fans in the stands at all in 2020. Again, that can change, but right now, NASCAR can’t plan for fans in the seats in their decision making.