NASCAR: Pocono a sign of things to come?

The first ever NASCAR Cup Series doubleheader is scheduled to take place this weekend at Pocono Raceway. Is this a sign of things to come?

When the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series schedule was announced back in March of 2019, it was announced with the same tracks which had been on the schedule in many recent seasons.

However, it still featured quite a few changes, changes which led many fans to hope that even more changes would be in store as far as scheduling is concerned once many of the track contracts expire after the 2020 season.

Of course, the 2020 schedule now looks nothing like it did back then, at least not up until this point. The 10-week hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic resulted in NASCAR doing some major shifting, most notably by canceling races at three tracks and moving them to other locations.

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But one such change that the 2020 schedule originally included was a weekend doubleheader, the first ever weekend doubleheader in Cup Series history. This remains on the schedule to this day, and it is scheduled to take place this weekend at Pocono Raceway, with one race on Saturday, June 27 and another race on Sunday, June 28.

Many people saw this as an opportunity to test the waters and see if future doubleheaders could be executed at other venues, specifically those which host two races throughout the season.

The pandemic already sped up the process of testing midweek races, effectively out of necessity considering the fact that NASCAR still plans on running a full 36-race schedule despite having what basically amounted to a second offseason thrown in between early March and mid-May.

With three midweek races already having been contested, there is one more on the schedule this season, with that being the Thursday, July 23 race at Kansas Speedway.

While the doubleheader experiment is set to be conducted on the same weekend it would have been conducted without the threat of COVID-19, this process has already effectively been sped up when looking at the big picture as well.

Why? Because it may not be a test for 2021; it may be a test for the rest of 2020. There is a very real possibility that this won’t be the last weekend doubleheader of the season.

The updated Cup Series schedule includes 34 races, with two tracks, Michigan International Speedway and Dover International Speedway, still seeking replacement dates, meaning that the path to a 36-race schedule is as clear as it has ever been.

NASCAR has released the updated regular season schedule through Sunday, August 2, and both of these tracks are already scheduled to host August regular season races after this date. Michigan International Speedway is scheduled to host a race on Sunday, August 9 while Dover International Speedway is scheduled to host a race on Sunday, August 23.

If the upcoming weekend doubleheader goes well, perhaps we will see a race at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday, August 8 and a race at Dover International Speedway on Saturday, August 22 as well.

We have already seen how rain postponing midweek races can affect the schedule for the upcoming race weekend. Fortunately, NASCAR was able to dodge what could have been complete disasters in those situations, given the fact that there seemed to always be rain in the forecast for those events. Two of the three were impacted by bad weather.

The advantage of a weekend doubleheader is that NASCAR doesn’t have to wait three or four days to run another race, only to have it be postponed and then mess up the plans of the following weekend. The disadvantage, however, is that if the entire weekend is a wash, now they have two races to make up instead of just one.

According to The Weather Channel, we may get to see how NASCAR handles such a situation this weekend as well. There is an 80% chance of thunderstorms throughout the day tomorrow and a 50% chance of the same on Sunday.

And remember, Pocono Raceway does not have lights.

Saturday’s race, the Pocono Organics 325, is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET, while Sunday’s race, the Pocono 350, is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 beginning at 4:00 p.m. ET.