Die hard NASCAR fans left dispirited

Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway postponed.

HAMPTON — Racing people can be stubborn folk. On Friday morning, a day after NASCAR announced it was going ahead with the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway — only without spectators — there remained a few hundred campers and tents stationed outside the track.

Some, such as Savannah’s Sandy Smith, said she and her husband intended to stay there all weekend, even if they couldn’t get inside. “We got our (race) scanners; we can hear the drivers. We can hear the cars. We can watch it on TV,” she said.

“We’re trying to make the most out of it,” said Allen Rogers, of Columbus, sitting outside his campsite, while his four kids scampered about. “We’ve been here in snow. Been here in rain. And now this.”

“This” being the coronavirus outbreak and the ever-shifting plans for this race. At first, race officials announced there would be limited contact between the fans and the drivers during race week. Then came the announcement that NASCAR intended to run the race Sunday with no fans in the vast grandstands here.

And, then, t he last shoe dropped:

There’d be no race at all for these diehards to even listen to from outside the gates. That small consolation was gone. Just before 11:30 a.m. Friday, there came this statement:

“NASCAR has decided to postpone the race events at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend and Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend.”

“We believe this decision is in the best interest of the safety and well-being of our fans, competitors, officials and everyone associated with our sport. We will continue to monitor this dynamic situation as we assess future race events.”

NASCAR’s Xfinity Series and Truck Series races scheduled for today at AMS were part of the postponements.

While NASCAR employed the term postpone rather than cancel, there was no immediate mention of a possible make-up date. There are two off Sundays

‘Disappointment on a scale of 1 to 10 — it’s a 17.’ Peggy Oiler

Fan from Lawrenceville

in the middle of this year’s NASCAR schedule — July 26 and Aug. 2. Whether they come into play is at this point unknown.

Meanwhile, ticket-holders were told that they would receive a credit for their purchase, which could be applied to next year’s race or any race at one of the other seven tracks owned by Speedway Motorsports, subject to availability.

Momentarily it looked as if this race would be the only show in sports this weekend. As NASCAR stated its intention to run without fans in the seats or the infield, other leagues around the world had already suspended operation.

But by midday Friday, both NASCAR and IndyCar bent to the same realities as every other sport and called off their events. No amount of stubbornness could overcome the desire to contain the spread of this virus by all means necessary.

The disappointment rippled throughout the gathering of diehards at their campsites.

“Now we’re just camping out here for no reason,” said W.P. Toombs, who drove his RV from Greenville, S.C. He, like many of the others around him, were concerned about a postponement as opposed to an outright cancellation and how that may affect any credit he would get for next March’s race.

Many of these fans joined in an obstinate chorus of disappointment and disbelief afterward.

“Disappointment on a scale of 1 to 10 — it’s a 17,” said Peggy Oiler, from Lawrenceville, among a group of local fans who have been camping out on race week for better than 20 years.

“It’s an outdoor event. It never should have been called; it’s just stupid,” her sister Penny Powell said.

“We’re all adults. We should have been allowed to make our own decision about whether or not to go in and watch the race,” said Mike Thesenvitz of Loganville, another of the group that was deciding when it wanted to bug out.

And, so, race week was done, not with a roar but with a parade of race-team haulers leaving far too soon and the loyalists in the camping areas slowly, reluctantly, packing up their folding chairs and their grills and straggling out of town.