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NASCAR Announces Return, with Incredibly Dense Schedule to Make Up for Lost Time

If you like NASCAR, you’re about to be a very happy, and busy, person.

If you ask ten people whether or not NASCAR is a sport, you’re liable to wind up with 11 different opinions on the matter.

Some sill immediately point to the risk of the endeavor as proof of its athleticism.  Others will conjure some calorie-burning statistics, or facts and figures that demonstrate the pounds of pressure it takes to keep a 200mph vehicle appropriately pointed at the banked turns.

Others will say that “it’s just driving”, or they’ll point to some photograph of a rotund driver as evidence of the activity’s overhyped status as a “sport”.

Now that the world has no baseball, basketball, hockey, or soccer to watch, however, we imagine that some folks will be changing their tune come May 17.

NASCAR announced Thursday that it will resume its season without fans starting May 17 at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina with the premier Cup Series racing three more times in a 10-day span.

NASCAR joins the UFC as the first major sports organizations to announce specific return to play plans since the coronavirus pandemic shut down U.S. sports in mid-March.

“NASCAR and its teams are eager and excited to return to racing, and have great respect for the responsibility that comes with a return to competition,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer. “NASCAR will return in an environment that will ensure the safety of our competitors, officials and all those in the local community.

NASCAR’s revised schedule goes only through May and has a pair of Wednesday races, fulfilling fans longtime plea for midweek events. The first race is scheduled for Darlington, NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway, followed by a second race at the 70-year-old, egg-shaped oval track three days later.

As the first professional sport to return to the United States, we can only imagine that some who have dismissed NASCAR in the past may tune in, if for no reason other than to interject some spontaneity to their quarantine routines.

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