NASCAR putting its safety plan to test

CHARLOTTE, N.C. » Crew chief Chad Knaus won’t get a look at the car Hendrick Motorsports built for Darlington Raceway until he gets to the track Sunday morning, a few hours before the race.

Kurt Busch? He’s already sat in his Chip Ganassi Racing car and met with his crew chief.

The return to racing for NASCAR has brought with it a set of safety protocols that will be strictly enforced at the track Sunday

when the Cup Series goes racing for the first time in more than two months after a pandemicforced hiatus. The stock car series can only trust competitors to follow the guidelines away from the track — and teams appear to have different interpretations.

“No face-to-face or contact with these guys whatsoever. Everything has been on (Zoom) team meetings,” said Knaus, a seven-time championship winning crew chief. “That’s the recommendation by NASCAR for the traveling teams to stay as isolated as they can and try to keep everybody at the race track as healthy as we can. That’s the protocol we put into place and that’s what we’ve been abiding by.”

Not others. Busch dropped by the Ganassi shop Thursday. He wanted a face-to-face meeting with crew chief Matt McCall before Darlington after two months of communicating via phone or computer.

“Just him and I, separated from the group,” Busch said. “There’s a shift change where the shop is empty for an hour, so it will be just him and I following (social) distancing.”