Silence greets NASCAR return
NEW YORK: Kevin Harvick and NASCAR both celebrated victories on Sunday as the stock car series returned to live racing from a two-month novel coronavirus forced hiatus at an empty Darlington Raceway.
While the day unfolded with none of the bells and whistles that have made NASCAR North America’s most popular motor sport, on the track the race delivered as promised with plenty of bumper-to-bumper action.
Harvick produced a masterful drive to pull away after a late restart to cross 2.15 seconds clear of Alex Bowman and Kurt Busch for his 50th career Cup win.
The 44-year-old driver celebrated in what has become typical NASCAR fashion with some tire burning donuts that would normally spark a massive roar of approval from the stands but in this race there was no one to witness the show.
Not even the growl from 40 V8 stock car engines could make up for the silence as drivers exited the track to muffled applause from pit crews and officials.
“I didn’t think it was going to be that much different and then we won the race and it is dead silent out here, so we miss the fans,” said Harvick. “It is weird just because there is nobody up there. Usually you get out of the car and the crowd is screaming and yelling ... today it was like, well. We got done, everybody left. I have been around this deal for a long time and this is not like anything I have experienced,” said Harvick. “It is very similar to coming back after 9/11 but that day had 100,000 fans in the stands and now you have no fans.”