Let’s race 2? Shaking up the schedule

It was bump day for the Indy 500.

The Indianapolis 500 is now a summer event. The Monster Mile could be set for a monster-sized NASCAR weekend spectacle of racing. And a supersized shakeup of the schedule looms whenever NASCAR and IndyCar resume in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Indy 500 now shares the race weekend calendar with ... the Drydene 400. Yes, the crown jewel of IndyCar will serve as the opening act for the NASCAR Cup race at Dover International Speedway.

Dover still doesn’t have a new date for its May race, one of seven NASCAR weekends already postponed before the series is scheduled to resume May 9 at Martinsville Speedway.

As each confined weekend ticks off, and the death count from coronavirus grows, that target seems more and more unlikely.

“We intend to race all our 36 points races as well as the All-Star event,” NASCAR President Steve Phelps said. “At this particular point, we would like to finish the season at Phoenix and keep the playoff portion intact. With that said, it will require a lot of different opportunities for us to look at.”

So what will happen? NASCAR had promised a shakeup of its staid schedule in 2021, but the crisis may force the stock car series to offer a sneak peak the rest of the summer. Mid-week races, night races, doubleheaders, nothing is off the starting grid when it comes to potential scenarios to squeeze in the remaining 32 Cup races.

NASCAR offered a break with tradition in June with Pocono Raceway set to hold a NASCAR Cup Series twin bill, with one race on Saturday, one on Sunday. The test run could now be forced on at least another track — with Dover the top target.

“The perfect scenario would be to have enough time to prepare properly for two separate race weekends,” Tatoian said. “If that’s not possible, it would have to be in the form of a doubleheader.”

Let’s race two!

There is a doubleheader scheduled because of coronavirus with a twist, an IndyCar/NASCAR twin bill at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The IndyCar road course race will now be run on July 4, a day before NASCAR races at The Brickyard in an unprecedented doubleheader between the series.

The series would like to send a proposed schedule to teams within the next week or two that would shed light on what’s ahead. One obvious solution, moving the June 7 race at Michigan International Speedway to an Aug. 9 doubleheader at the track to free up another weekend.

“We are working with Fox and with NBC to understand what windows might be available,” Phelps said. “That will come as we develop this schedule. It is complex, for sure. But both partners have shown great willingness to try to work with us, obviously we with the other sports to find windows to get back to racing in our case.”