The second version of NASCAR’s revised 2020 schedule was unveiled on Thursday. The next steps are similar to the first one — close to home races, one-day shows and no fans are the big ones.

What’s becoming clear is this, the new norm may be the actual norm for the foreseeable future.

“I think with all the meetings that I’ve been a part of at home and iRacing and the way that the teams are functioning there’s going to be some things that come out of this situation that are permanent and what those things are will start this weekend,” Kevin Harvick said on Thursday.

First off, a way to limit at track personnel is simple — use tracks close to the Charlotte area. That allows for one-day races to work. Part of that is to just eliminate the need for practice and use different measures in order to determine the starting lineups for these races.

We’ve seen adjustments made to this already. Even before COVID-19 hit. Race weekend’s were starting to consist of two Friday practice sessions for the NASCAR Cup Series, qualifying on Saturday and the race on Sunday.

Why have more than a couple of practice sessions? Well, we may soon be heading towards a direction of not needing practices now. That eliminates the need to make changes to race cars away from the shops now which in turn means the teams can just bring their driver, crew chief, car chief, spotter and pit crew members and that’s all. Think of all the money it saves teams in that sense as well as saving for the tire and fuel bills as well.

In turn, why need long weekend’s anymore? We can show up and run 1-2 day shows and get out of there. That sets up for more weeknight races around the Charlotte area which in turn cuts outs multiple weekends out of the schedule. Instead of finish the year off in November, we can go back to some point in October.

Also, the no fans coming to the track until at least July, even when they do come back,  their access will likely be limited. I can’t see pit or garage access for fans any time soon, even if they can come back to the tracks again some time in the not so distant future. Autograph sessions will be different too with any sort of interaction being limited without photos, handshakes, hugs or anything like that. Most items will already be pre signed.

I expect the one-day shows, the no practice and qualifying and no fans to last for a while. Then, when fans are allowed to come, there’s going to be large adjustments from there.

The next thing that could change are pit stops. Controlled stops could be used some time in the future too.

Right now, I don’t see NASCAR going past the central time zone any time soon. It may be late July or August before they venture that direction. The west coast races will probably be grouped together on future schedules and more weeknight races would occur.