INDIANAPOLIS — Welcome back, NASCAR. On Thursday, series officials released as well as discussed their resumption of the 2020 season. That will take place in two weeks at the Darlington Raceway. But, be careful what you wish for too.

For fans, media, tracks and NASCAR in general, it will be a welcomed sight on May 17 to see cars circling a race track in competition. Even though we can’t be there in person to witness, it will be nice to have live sports on television again.

But, for the teams and drivers, while there’s no doubt that they’ll be happy to be racing again, the month ahead is going to be a difficult one.

First up is Darlington — a track that lives by many nicknames but the most prominent one “Too Tough To Tame.” It didn’t get that nickname for no reason. The South Carolina race track is one of the toughest to race on all year.

It’s fast. It’s physical. The racing surface is aged and degrades tires like sandpaper. Oh yeah, the quick way around the “Lady In Black” is to race at speeds over 170 mph just inches from the wall. 

If that’s not tough enough, try showing up on May 17 with no laps behind the wheel in 70 days and the first laps you take around this daunting track are in race conditions. That’s right, there’s no testing, no practice and no qualifying between now and race day. You just show up, unload the cars and race.

“We’ve been sitting outside of a race car for over two months and then we’re gonna barrel it down into Turn 1 at 200 mph with no practice,” Joey Logano said to ESPN on Monday. “That’s going to be a puckered up moment.”

Last year’s Southern 500 pole sitter William Byron agrees.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Byron said of the situation. “I think the biggest thing is just trying to prepare yourself well physically. Obviously you’re not going to get that chance to really go through practice and kind of warm up your muscles, I guess you could say, to get ready in the car.”

Byron, also notes that the trip to Darlington normally is a night race. This one, will be in different conditions.

“With it being a daytime race, it’s going to be different as well,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver continued. “A lot of different variables there. The biggest thing is just being prepared.”

They have to do 400 miles of that on Sunday then turn around and do it again in a slightly shorter race three days later with the same pre race routine.

If that’s not tough, try four days after that only having qualifying then racing in the longest race of the year — 600 miles at Charlotte. Then, three days later, racing 500 kilometers at Charlotte again.

Four races in a span of 10 days and half of those races being at Darlington, arguably the toughest track and having to do so without and on track time before the race and a third race being the longest race of the season.

It’s going to test the drivers’ stamina and focus as well as the teams’ attention to detail. There’s no way to simulate these races because we haven’t race at Darlington in May in  years. The notes from Labor Day weekend won’t translate well over to this month and without any practice before, you’re going to have to work on your race car all race.

“A lot of it’s going to fall on the teams and the cars who hits the setup right,” Byron said of racing without practice and qualifying and how hard it’s going to be for he and his team. “It’s going to be big because there’s a lot of variables there. You’re not going to have a chance to set the height of the car, predict where the splitter is going to end up, where the back is going to travel to. As a driver all you can do is put consistent laps together. You have to be efficient in traffic at the start of the race. I do feel like there’s going to be some mistakes made, some bounces off the wall things like that. You have to avoid that in the first run or so. Then you’ll start to see who really has the car after that.”