Well, we knew three tracks would be losing a 2020 NASCAR Cup Series date due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing NASCAR to restart their season with multiple races at Darlington Raceway and Charlotte Motor Speedway.
On Friday, NASCAR made the official announcement that Sonoma Raceway, Chicagoland Speedway and Richmond Raceway have officially lost a race during the 2020 season.
NASCAR released a statement on their decision to replace these races on the schedule:
NASCAR announces realignment tracks for the sanctioning body's initial return to racing: https://t.co/OGabeqs5od pic.twitter.com/nHfpDZd1J0
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 8, 2020
For Sonoma and Chicago, this means they will not host a NASCAR Cup Series race this year, while Richmond will now be a one-race venue.
With the loss of Sonoma on the schedule, it means the 2020 season only has two scheduled road course events remaining (Watkins Glen and the Charlotte Roval). This led many to wonder why the Charlotte event on May 27th that will be taking Sonoma’s place on the schedule wasn’t to be contested at The Roval.
NASCAR’s Josh Hamilton had a pretty simple answer for that question on Twitter. Teams simply don’t have any road course cars ready at this moment in time.
Teams don’t have road course cars prepared. They have intermediate cars (don’t forget we were going to Atlanta/Homestead when this all happened).
— Josh Hamilton (@joshahamilton) May 8, 2020
The 2020 schedule continues to be a fluid moving target, and could see numerous more changes as the United States begins to reopen its economy in hopes that the spread of COVID-19 has slowed.
NASCAR will likely have to make many more tough decisions before the end of the year.
