It has taken almost a full year but NASCAR’s slow walk toward normalcy is ready to hit another gear.
Race teams welcomed back sponsors and corporate guests, and team officials and media roamed the garage in limited numbers during the tripleheader weekend at Darlington Raceway. The historic speedway that served as the epicenter for NASCAR’s schedule resuming in 2020 was host for the next evolutionary step in the sport’s COVID-19 protocol procedures.
As infield access has grown in small measures, so has the reopening of the grandstands. On Friday, both Darlington and Daytona International Speedway announced that their races scheduled for later this season would be open to full attendance. Those two tracks joined Atlanta, Pocono and Sonoma among the venues planning to end restrictions on the number of spectators allowed through the doors later this year.