NASCAR announced a couple of Thursday’s ago their intentions of returning to action. Following a 70 day break, NASCAR said that their new plans were to return to action on Sunday, May 17 at the Darlington Raceway. That will take place this Sunday actually. Also, two weeknight races were revealed with one at the same Darlington track on May 20 and the other a week later (May 27) at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The only other race that was announced was the May 24 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte being unaffected and staying put on its original scheduled date.

Now, none of these four races will have fans at them as NASCAR is also planning on taking drastic measures in order of trying to keep COVID-19 out of the sport. Part of the planning is to eliminate the need for practice and qualifying as three of the four races scheduled didn’t feature either. Only the ‘600 next weekend will have qualifying as it will be held a few hours prior to the 6 p.m. ET scheduled race time.

At the time, that was all NASCAR would reveal. They did say that they held over 60 different variations of the schedule and felt like they had a good idea on when and where to conduct races for the rest of the season. The only problem with that is, with protocols changing by what seems like the day, it’s hard to plan a future schedule when the situation still remains very fluid.

That’s why it took until now for NASCAR to release the next batch of the schedule which will be five more races.

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Those races are Bristol (May 31), Atlanta (June 7), Martinsville (June 10), Homestead (June 14) and Talladega Superspeedway (June 21). The first three are all within driving distances of Charlotte, which is the hub for a majority of the race teams. Another part of NASCAR’s plan of safety measures is to have one-day shows close to base, meaning they can distance and not need the use of hotel rooms for overnight stays.

That’s why Darlington and Charlotte were the first two tracks out of the gates. Darlington, is 91 miles away from Charlotte. That’s also why they are race No. 1 and No. 2 in the resumption part of the schedule. Martinsville (VA) Speedway is the second closest track in proximity to Charlotte at 128 miles away. They missed their May 8 race. That’s why they will host a weeknight race to fill their gap. Bristol (Tenn) Motor Speedway is third at 156 miles away. That’s why they’re the first race up on this revised schedule again. They missed their April date and that gets made up as well. Atlanta Motor Speedway is next at 274 miles away. That’s why they get a weekend race just after Bristol as they too missed the spring race back in March as well. Talladega was the next closest track.

See a theme here?

Also there this, the Atlanta and Homestead cars were already prepared since they were the first two races affected by the coronavirus shut down. There won’t be much prep in the shop now for them. In turn, they can use the notes from Charlotte, another 1.5-mile track to help for Atlanta and Darlington to help for Homestead. Bristol and Martinsville are both short tracks and can use similar cars too.

This would mark five more races on the schedule, which combine that with four already run back in February-March and four coming up over the next couple of weeks, and you get 13 races out of the 36 ready. NASCAR has said that they have full intentions of racing all 36 events in 2020 but would have to make some changes obviously.

Atlanta, Homestead, Texas, Bristol, Richmond, Talladega, Dover and Martinsville have already had races missed from the spring. Now, Kansas, Michigan, Sonoma and Chicagoland in June are affected. That’s 12 races there. Three of them are canceled with Chicago, Sonoma and Richmond losing their spring races. The newly added events at Darlington and Charlotte replaced them. Now, with Atlanta, Homestead, Martinsville, Talladega and Bristol getting new dates, that leaves Texas, Dover, Michigan and Kansas needing new ones.

Steve O’Donnell remains firm that the final 11 races of the schedule will remain the same still. He wants Daytona to close the regular season in late August and all 10 playoff tracks to stay the same too.

So, if you take that mixed with 13 races now scheduled, that’s 24 races known with 12 more to schedule for late June through mid August. We only have four races from the spring left to make up and ways to easily make this happen.

O’Donnell, said that Pocono will remain a doubleheader weekend and the first ones up to do so. Their current dates are in late June and could remain in place on the third unveiling a few weeks from now. He also said that we could see 1-2 more on the schedule for later in the year. Dover and Michigan have second dates later this summer and are prime candidates to have doubleheader weekends too. That would mean just two tracks need a replacement date (Texas and Kansas). All three are playoff tracks and O’Donnell said that they’re not going to run doubleheaders in the postseason.

So, those three will likely still get made up but it may be end of June or July/August for them.

Here’s what a schedule past mid June could look like now –

May 17 – Darlington

May 20 – Darlington

May 24 – Charlotte

May 27 – Charlotte

May 31 – Bristol (make up spring race)

June 7 – Atlanta (make up spring race)

June 10 – Martinsville (make up spring race)

June 14 – Homestead (make up for spring race)

June 21 – Talladega (make up for spring race)

June 27 – Pocono

June 28 – Pocono

July 5 – Indianapolis

July 8 – Kentucky

July 11 – Michigan (move from June race)

July 12 – Michigan

July 19 – Kansas (move from June race)

July 26 – Texas (Make up from spring race)

Aug. 2 – New Hampshire

Aug. 9 – Watkins Glen

Aug. 15 – Dover (move from spring race)

Aug. 16 – 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