CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Erik Jones tried to imagine what the moments leading up to the green flag at Darlington would be like.
“It’s going to be different,” said Jones, who drives the No. 20 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing. “I mean, that’s the easiest way to put it.”
Jones described how he typically prepares on race day; He wakes up, does his mid-morning media appearances, attends a drivers meeting, eats lunch, then takes 20 minutes or so to relax before heading into a crowded arena for an afternoon race.
This Sunday, Jones will alter his routine to align with the event protocols NASCAR has put in place in order to resume its season amid the coronavirus pandemic. There will be no fans in attendance and no qualifying session on Sunday — drivers will touch the track for the first time since March 8.
“That’s going to be really unique,” Jones said. “Walking out to the grid and just hopping in the car.”
Jones, like all other drivers, has been instructed to drive to the track separated from his team and to remain in his motorhome until it’s time to race in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“What I envision most likely will happen is NASCAR will have us all on a mass text,” No. 11 driver Denny Hamlin said on Sunday. “They’ll probably give us a text saying, ‘Drivers to your cars.’ The same way they communicate when they tell us we have a rain delay.”
“I think it’s going to be easier because there is nothing to sidetrack us on race day,” Hamlin continued. “It’s literally just going to race and race only. We don’t need all those extra people around like we normally would.”
NASCAR has issued COVID-19 event protocol guidelines to teams, including mandating the use of personal protective equipment, practicing social distancing, logging interactions between team members at the track, monitoring individual health conditions and abiding by the roster limitations (team rosters are capped at 16 people). In a rules bulletin issued last week, NASCAR announced that teams in the Cup Series could be fined as much as $50,000 for violating those guidelines.
“We’re the organization that puts cars on the track four days a week at 200 miles an hour,” NASCAR vice president of racing operations John Bobo said. “We think it’s that same discipline and eye towards safety that everybody in our industry has that is going to help us execute on this.”
Since announcing its return schedule two weeks ago, NASCAR has also recommended that teams and drivers traveling to the track do not go to the race shop prior to Sunday in order to reduce the chance of infection. For larger teams, this is possible since there are multiple sets of crew members – some who travel and others who do not. For smaller teams, such as Go Fas Racing, which only employs 17 people, that’s a nearly impossible task. Still, no team has been allowed to run cars on the track since the season was postponed, so the first laps will be essentially a test for all teams.
“Big teams are gonna have to cut a lot more,” Go Fas General Manager Mason St. Hilaire said. “They’re really gonna have to figure out who’s gonna go. We’re probably going to have to leave one, maybe two guys back here for each race.”
Last week, St. Hilaire said he was working to determine the team’s traveling roster for Darlington, which will include No. 32 driver Corey LaJoie, St. Hilaire and his father, team owner Archie St. Hilaire (on larger teams, St. Hilaire said the “team side” individuals traveling would likely be a “competition guy and IT guy”) and six crew members including a spotter.
For every driver and team member, the days leading up to the race at Darlington and the moments rounding the first turn will be a strange, isolated experience. Some drivers are preparing by putting time in on their simulator rigs.
“It’s difficult to be able to trust yourself and trust your instincts that you know what you’re doing to barrel it off into turn one at the proper speed” Hamlin said. “The good news is now that we know all these guys have got rigs, I guarantee all of them will be on iRacing at some point out there making laps at Darlington just to get re-acclimated.”
Like drivers, crew members are doing what they can to prepare virtually. Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Chad Knaus said his team has been holding virtual meetings to discuss race film and notes.
“It’s not easy, man,” Knaus said. He added that his No. 24 team is using its 2019 run at Darlington as a baseline “with a little bit of what we’ve learned so far (in 2020) in the mix.”
“Obviously the new Camaro is a new beast for us,” Knaus said. “We had a really good race in Las Vegas. Our teammates had a really good run in Fontana, so we took the data from there, applied those offsets to the best of our ability and what we feel like the characteristics are going to be when we go to Darlington and kind of came up with what it was.”
Knaus said he saw his pit crew in person for the first time on Thursday.
“I was in my car while they were doing pit stops and that was it,” Knaus said. “So really I haven’t been at (the shop). I went there three weeks ago to pick up something for my printer, and other than that, I haven’t been there at all.”
Not at all?
“I haven’t seen the race car at all,” Knaus clarified to stunned reporters. “Nope. I haven’t seen it, touched it.”
Knaus said the team is strictly abiding by NASCAR’s recommendations.
In terms of the competition, there will be live pit stops and a caution flag will likely come early in the race to allow teams to make adjustments, but there is no secret formula.
“I think you kind of have to evolve as the race evolves,” Cup points leader Kevin Harvick said.
“The biggest goal in this instance is to just not be in right field,” Harvick said. “Try to get yourself in the ballpark, be able to adjust on it so that you don’t have to have a rebuild and reboot. A few days later, you can do that, but you can’t do that during the race.”
Drivers said they expect to settle into the racing part quickly after making the first few laps, but everything before and after that will be new.
“It’s going to be odd and it’s going to be unprecedented to what we’ve always done,” Jones said. “So weird feeling. A new normal for right now.
“As long as we’re getting to race, I think most of us can manage finding the new normal for a little while.”
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