With Speedway’s May race nixed, track boss hopeful fans will be allowed at next event
In any other year, Kansas Speedway president Pat Warren would be constantly checking the weather forecast and finalizing details for the track’s first race of 2020, originally scheduled for next weekend.
“You’re basically re-awaking a 1,200-acre property, 60-plus suites, a mile-and-a-half of asphalt and making sure everything is perfect,” Warren said.
This isn’t like any other year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyone’s approach and schedule: There is no May race weekend in Kansas. The track’s annual spring NASCAR event has been moved to Bristol, Tennessee, site of next Sunday’s Food City 500.
The Kansas race weekend hasn’t been canceled, but rather postponed, leaving open the possibility that two race weekends could still take place at the track this season. That arrangement — two full weekends of NASCAR racing at Kansas Speedway each year — has become the norm, with the Hollywood Casino 400 taking place each autumn. That race remains scheduled for the fall, on Oct. 18, and would again be part of NASCAR’s Cup Series playoffs.
NASCAR hopes to complete its original number of 36 races in 2020. Four Cup races had been held before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down sports in mid-March, and NASCAR was the first major American sport to return to competition last weekend at Darlington, South Carolina.
Two races without fans were held at Darlington, on Sunday and Wednesday, and two more races are set for Charlotte Motor Speedway: this Sunday and May 27. A modified schedule through June 21 is now in place, with events held at tracks in the South within driving distance of most race teams’ headquarters around Charlotte.
Warren holds out hope that the additional time needed for a Kansas Speedway race might allow for more favorable circumstances for everyone involved, including spectators.
No fans have been or will be allowed at the races in the Carolinas, but by the time a race is held here in the KC area, that policy could ease.
“There’s a huge ripple effect throughout the economy if we’re racing without fans, which may still end up being the case,” Warren said. “But at least this gives us a chance to race with fans, which would benefit the hotels, restaurants, frankly everyone who has been hit hard by the pandemic.
“If things get better, and even if it’s a lesser number of fans, there will be a benefit.”
The May Kansas race wasn’t officially postponed until last Thursday when NASCAR released its new spring schedule. Race fans had been clamoring for information in the weeks leading up to the announcement, but Kansas wasn’t in a position speculate on what might happen to their May date. That decision was entirely up to NASCAR.
“I want to thank fans for their patience,” Warren said. “It was one of the real difficulties in all of this. We had a sense we weren’t going to race in May, but we didn’t know for sure.” NASCAR had to work with its tracks, other racing series and local and state governments before finalizing a modified slate.
This has happened as NASCAR is streamlining its operations. Last October, NASCAR closed on a $2 billion purchase of International Speedway Corp., and took control of ISC’s 13 tracks, including Kansas Speedway.
Personnel reductions had been planned after the move, but the pandemic hastened those cutbacks. NASCAR has gone through two rounds of layoffs and furloughs in the last two months, including some staff at Kansas Speedway. NASCAR wouldn’t comment on how many employees have lost jobs.
The organization also instituted across-the-board pay cuts: 25% for executives and 20% for other employees.
“Some difficult decisions unfortunately had to be made,” Warren said. “But all of the decisions have been made with the idea of become a stronger entity when we come out of this and put ourselves in a strong position for success.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 4:10 PM with the headline "With Speedway’s May race nixed, track boss hopeful fans will be allowed at next event."