May 28, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

Fans thrilled to return to track as sense of normalcy settles in at Charlotte

Fans cheered as NASCAR Cup cars rolled onto the track at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Friday. 

In the heart of stock car country, some semblance of normalcy returned to the sport for the first time since March 13, 2020, when the sanctioning body elected to stop competition to develop a game plan during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Two months later, the racing returned, but not the legion of fans—nor the number of support staff for the teams, NASCAR or the media. Perhaps the starkest consequence was the absence of practice and qualifying. In the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, limited personnel and resources made it necessary to shelve some traditional procedures.

But on Friday, practice returned for the Cup and Xfinity Series. Although time trials were canceled for the Camping World Truck Series due to rain, qualifying is still scheduled for both Cup and Xfinity on Saturday. And for the marathon of stock car crown jewel races—the Coca-Cola 600—the campgrounds around the track were peppered with racegoers ready to rejoice.

Sure, NASCAR has slowly welcomed spectators back to the track. Following North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s decision on May 14 to lift social distancing requirements and most mask mandates—as nearly half of the adult population in the Tar Heel State is fully vaccinated— grandstand capacity jumped from 30-percent to 100. 

“It's definitely good to have fans back in the stands,” Kyle Busch said. “When we first got back to some of these races that fans were at and we had driver intros, the boos were back and everything felt like it was getting back to normal, you know. So that's certainly just a part of it and part of our sport and nice having them and they enjoy coming out, and being on the big screen and waving and supporting their favorite driver.”

Busch was 10th fastest on the speed chart with a lap of 179.319 mph—tops among Toyota drivers. He ranked sixth in best 10 consecutive average. For the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing squad, which has struggled throughout the pandemic due to a lack of practice, the additional track time was welcomed.

“It was good. We felt like we had a pretty good practice overall, just tried a couple of different adjustments and changes in order to work on our balance and just trying to get right for tomorrow,” Busch said. “Kind of a typical practice I guess you know, back to having one at least. So, you know, good to see what we could learn and pick up on and work on.

“This practice was perfect. You couldn't have picked a better time to do it. We're always used to coming in on Friday and practicing at 12 to two o'clock exactly when you don't want to be on the race track and then we qualify at night. This was perfect for us anyways and you know we unloaded, we were close but, we definitely made some adjustments on it just to kind of pick at the car a little bit and try to work on it. We've got a few more things that we need to be able to do to the car in order to get a race-ready for 400 laps.”

Early in the 50-minute practice session, Erik Jones posted a lap at 180.319 mph in race trim, tops on the board at the time. In the final 10 minutes, Kyle Larson (180.808 mph) knocked Jones from the top rung on speed chart. Alex Bowman (180.838 mph), and Austin Dillon—whose lap of 29.845-seconds (180.935 mph) held up for the fastest time of the session--followed with even faster laps. All three drivers were in qualifying trim at the time.

Larson, who posted the best 10 consecutive lap average of 179.006 mph, didn’t share many of his peers’ views as to the benefits of practice. Considering his newfound success at Hendrick Motorsports with one win and seven top-five finishes—including three-consecutive second-place results entering Charlotte, his sentiment is understandable. 

"Honestly, with how good we are, I would rather not have practice,” Larson said. “I feel like, with where we’re at in the No. 5 car, we’ve probably got more to lose with a practice session in just getting confused, going out there and making a run; coming in and making a change; going out there and being on cycled tires and it doesn’t drive like you’d like. And then you freak out and throw big adjustments at it. 

“We stuck to our game plan today and just did one 20-lap run. We’ll look at our notes and see what little adjustments to make. There’s room to be gained, but more often than not, I feel like, if anything with my history, we dial ourselves out in practice.”