NASCAR: The one track that completely avoided re-scheduling mayhem

Just one track on the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series schedule completely avoided re-scheduling mayhem, as it hosted its lone race of the season prior to the stoppage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Just four of the 36 races on the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series schedule had been contested when the coronavirus pandemic caused the season to be brought to an unexpected halt.

The most recent action took place at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, March 8, when Team Penske’s Joey Logano beat Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick to the checkered flag by a fraction of a second.

As of now, eight of the remaining 32 races on the schedule have been postponed, bringing the scheduled race total down to 28, although there have been a lot of recent talks about getting the season back underway as soon as possible without fans in attendance.

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These talks have pointed to a potential return date of Sunday, May 17 with a potential return venue of Darlington Raceway.

NASCAR revealed a new potential schedule to teams that included eight races over a 29-day span during which there were initially only scheduled to be four races.

NASCAR has not confirmed any schedule changes beyond the eight postponements at this point, but this new schedule would bring back the scheduled race total from 28 to 32, four shy of the goal of 36.

But it would feature three new races that were not initially on the schedule, and only one of the other five races would be scheduled to take place as initially planned. As a result, additional races that have not yet been postponed will have to be altered, with some possibly even being removed.

Under this new short-term schedule, one track would even lose its lone race date for the season, at least temporarily.

This means that further schedule changes will inevitably be in store for beyond Sunday, June 14.

One track, however, doesn’t have to worry about those schedule changes in any capacity.

The four races that already took place this season took place at Daytona International Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Auto Club Speedway and Phoenix Raceway.

Daytona International Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway are each scheduled to host one more race before the 2020 season ends.

Auto Club Speedway, however, is already out of the picture for the year, and among all 23 venues on the schedule, it is the only track which can say that.

The fact that this is the case is ironic in and of itself, as it literally happened via a schedule change. The 2020 schedule was revealed last March, and Auto Club Speedway was slotted in as the third race.

From 2004 to 2010, the four-turn, 2.0-mile (3.219-kilometer) oval in Fontana, California, which began hosting Cup Series races in 1997, hosted two races per year. But ever since it lost its second race ahead of the 2011 season, it had hosted the season’s fifth race.

That is, until this year.

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While 22 venues will have to wait and see what happens with the coronavirus pandemic and work with NASCAR to determine the best possible solution for all parties, Auto Club Speedway is off the hook for the 2020 season, thanks to a schedule change made last March that saw it move from its traditional slot as the fifth race up to a new slot as the third.

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