Everything we know about NASCAR’s fan attendance policies for races in 2021 season

Alex Andrejev

Almost all of NASCAR’s earliest races in 2021 will run with limited fans. As the pandemic rages on, individual tracks have reduced seating capacity, beginning with the season-opening Daytona 500. NASCAR has also already reconfigured its schedule once.

Here’s what we know about which tracks are hosting fans:

Daytona 500 — Limited fans

Daytona International Speedway announced in December that attendance would be limited for NASCAR’s main event on Feb. 14 and all Speedweeks races that precede the 500, including the Clash, Duels and the Trucks and Xfinity races. The Daytona stands hold 101,500 spectators, per the speedway website, but a specific capacity cap was not provided.

The last two NASCAR Cup races at Daytona — the road course race in August and the regular-season finale a few weeks later — hosted an estimated 10,000 and 25,000 fans, respectively, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The speedway said that the reseating process is underway and expects to have information sent to fans who previously purchased tickets by the week of Jan. 11.

The speedway is maintaining its pandemic safety protocols for upcoming events by requiring visitors to wear masks, undergo a health screening and temperature check, maintain social distancing and utilize cashless transactions for limited concessions.

Road course race at Daytona — Limited fans

Some reconfiguring of NASCAR’s original schedule last month moved the Daytona road course race to second in the order and bumped Auto Club Speedway from the lineup completely. The move is thought to allow a greater number of fans to attend the event under Florida’s less restrictive policies compared with Southern California, as well as minimize travel between states. However, fan attendance is still limited for the Cup race on Feb 21.

Homestead — Limited fans

As part of NASCAR’s schedule realignment, the race at Homestead was pushed back one week to Feb. 28, and the track announced that it would host a limited number of fans. The track seats 55,000 people total in the grandstand. At Inter-Miami CF Stadium an hour north of the track, allotted attendance has hovered between 14 and 20 percent of the stadium’s 18,000-seat capacity for soccer events in recent months. The track’s safety protocols are consistent with those of Daytona.

Las Vegas — TBD

Tickets are on sale for the Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where seating was last estimated at fewer than 80,000 seats. The track did not host fans for its last Cup race in September and no update has been provided on whether entry will be limited for the race on March 7.

“We’re extremely happy to have our spring date moved back into March,” LVMS president Chris Powell said in a statement at the time of NASCAR’s 2021 schedule release. “It’s better for our fans, partners and everyone involved with our event to have a little separation from the Daytona 500. We feel as though we have the perfect dates for both of our NASCAR Cup Series events.”

Safety policies include wearing masks in the facility except when seated, agreeing to undergo a health screening and temperature check and maintaining six feet of social distancing between parties. Policies can be found in the track’s “Notice of Risk and Policies” document.

Phoenix — Limited fans

Phoenix Raceway, where attendance was limited to 20 percent capacity for the championship race in November, announced Monday that the track will again host limited fans. The next Cup race is scheduled for March 14.

Fans who purchased tickets and plan to attend will be relocated to ensure socially distanced seating, or accounts will be credited if the track is unable to reseat them, per the track website. Fans who purchased tickets are also able to defer orders to the 2022 Spring event (date TBA) by submitting an opt-out form by Jan. 8.

Complete safety protocols, which include a mandatory temperature check and health screening, mask-wearing while in the facility and social distancing between groups, can also be found on the speedway website.

Atlanta — “Likely” limited fans

Atlanta Motor Speedway has not released an official update on limited seating, but the speedway’s general manager Brandon Hutchison said in a video released in December that the track expects to host fans in a “limited, socially distanced capacity” for the Cup race on March 21. Fans are able to place ticket deposits online, but an announcement should be forthcoming from the speedway regarding seating.

Bristol dirt race — Limited fans

Bristol Motor Speedway announced Thursday that the track had reached its socially-distanced grandstand capacity for its dirt race on March 28. The track hosted roughly 22,000 fans for last year’s All-Star Race and attendance appeared closer to its sold-out allotted 20 percent capacity (30,000 spectators) for the Cup race there in September.

The speedway has stopped selling grandstand tickets, but said that a limited number of premium-seating options remain available for purchase. Information on ticketing and health and safety protocols can be found on the speedway website.

Latest Stories

  • Loeffler concedes to Warnock in Georgia Senate race: 'We came up slightly short'

    On Thursday, Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler conceded to the Rev. Raphael Warnock in a video statement posted to Twitter.

  • Six Republican lawmakers among rioters as police release photos of wanted

    Suspects include Holocaust deniers, White supremacists, and conspiracy theorists

  • Error puts millions of U.S. stimulus payments in wrong accounts -TurboTax

    Millions of pandemic stimulus payments have been deposited in incorrect customer accounts due to an Internal Revenue Service error, according to Intuit TurboTax, which is helping to distribute the payments. Two banking industry sources confirmed the error, which will delay distribution of the badly needed aid. "For those who don't receive a direct deposit, they should watch their mail for either a paper check or a prepaid debit card," the IRS said in a notice on Thursday.

  • Pakistan arrests 7 Shiite militants, foils possible attacks

    Pakistan's counter-terrorism police and the country's intelligence agency raided hideouts of an outlawed Shiite militant group in the eastern Punjab province and arrested seven suspects who allegedly wanted to attack leaders of rival Sunni Muslims' groups, a spokesman said Thursday. The suspects were being directed by militant leader Mehmood Iqbal, who was hiding in a neighboring country, officials said. Authorities did not name the country but officials have previously blamed Iran for backing Shiite militants.

  • Atlanta voters share their thoughts on the election: 'It’s time for a change'

    Georgians turned out in record numbers for runoff elections on Tuesday, casting more than 4 million votes. That high-water mark came weeks after the state surpassed 5 million votes, another record, in the Nov. 3 election. Yahoo News talked to Fulton County residents who shared why it was important for them to vote in this year’s runoffs.

  • Mike Pence’s daughter reveals she was caught up in riots and defends ‘hero’ Capitol police

    Charlotte Pence Bond, Mike Pence’s daughter, has defended Capitol Police after pro-Trump rioters were able to overpower law enforcement and breach the US Capitol on Wednesday. Capitol Police have come under scrutiny given how underprepared they appeared to be compared to the number of rioters who descended on the Capitol. Anyone who is blaming the Capitol Hill Police for the domestic terrorism that occurred yesterday should seriously reconsider their position.

  • EU citizens banned from using ID cards to enter UK after rising terrorism and crime concerns

    EU citizens will be banned from using ID cards to enter the UK from October because they are so easy to fake they are being widely used by terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants to enter the country. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, is using Brexit to change the rules so that EU ID cards can no longer be used as travel documents, and instead visiting EU nationals will have to present passports at UK borders. It comes amid growing concern about the proliferation of fake European IDs, which have been used by jihadis, rapists, thieves and benefit fraudsters. A Home Office source said: “These documents are some of the most insecure and abused documents seen at the border and we know that they are used by organised crime groups.” Thousands have used them to enter the UK, with Italian and Greek documents most susceptible because they are paper-based, more easily forged, and on sale for £800 on the black market. Albanian Fatmira Tafa was jailed for 14 months last year for using a fake Greek ID to get a kidney transplant that cost the NHS more than £72,000. Islamic State terrorists behind the Paris and Brussels atrocities used “top quality” counterfeit EU ID cards to travel freely around the continent planning their carnage. Najim Laachraoui, one of the Brussels Airport suicide bombers who killed 32, had an ID card from a counterfeit documents factory. The EU border agency Frontex said more than 7,000 people were detected trying to enter the bloc using fraudulent documents in 2016 – with most found trying to get into the UK. Albanian and Ukrainian nationals using fake Italian and Greek ID cards are the main offenders caught at UK borders. “Smugglers frequently provide migrants with fraudulent travel and identity documents as a part of their 'services',” Frontex said in its annual report. “Both the quantity and the quality of the fraudulent documents circulating in the EU have improved over recent years. The sustained demand has prompted counterfeiters to increase their output and has also prompted the creation of new print shops.” Europol, the European police agency, has warned that document fraud is one of the most common criminal activities linked to illegal immigration.

  • AP Photos: Indian army patrols border with rival Pakistan

    From sandbagged Indian army bunkers dug deep into the Pir Panjal mountains in the Himalayas, villages on the Pakistan-controlled side of Kashmir appear precariously close, on the other side of the Line of Control that for the past 73 years has divided the region between the two nuclear-armed rivals. Tens of thousands of soldiers from India and Pakistan are positioned along the two sides. AP journalists were recently allowed to cover Indian army counterinsurgency drills in Poonch and Rajouri districts along the Line of Control.

  • Trump aides reportedly conclude he is 'mentally unreachable'

    President Trump reportedly spent much of Wednesday "cocooned" at the White House as his supporters stormed the Capitol, and his aides say he has become "mentally unreachable."While a pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol building on Wednesday, disrupting Congress' session to certify President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election and leaving four people dead, Trump was "cocooned at the White House and listening only to a small coterie of loyal aides," all while resisting calls from advisers to condemn the rioters, The Washington Post reports."He kept saying: 'The vast majority of them are peaceful,'" an administration official told the Post. "'What about the riots this summer? What about the other side? No one cared when they were rioting. My people are peaceful. My people aren't thugs.' He didn't want to condemn his people."Now, Axios reports that some of Trump's "stalwart aides and confidants" have "given up trying to communicate with him" altogether, "considering him mentally unreachable.""His closest friends and paid White House officials — many of the Trumpiest Trumpers we know — are avoiding him like the plague," Axios writes, adding, "The president's final days in office will be lonely ones."Although Trump did ultimately release a video on Twitter in which he called on those rioting in the Capitol to go home, the video also again included his false claims that the election was stolen. According to the Post, aides had asked Trump not to include these false claims in the statement, but he went off script and threw them in anyway. Ultimately, some aides believe Trump "did irreparable damage to his presidency and legacy," the Post writes, with an administration official saying, "He was a total monster today."More stories from theweek.com Washington Times corrects widely cited story claiming 'antifa' infiltrated Capitol siege, says 'neo-Nazis' ID'd The decline and fall of Donald Trump Maryland governor said he was repeatedly denied authorization to send National Guard to D.C.

  • Pelosi gavels Congress for Electoral College vote

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has gaveled in a historic joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College vote won by Joe Biden. (Jan. 6)

  • Turkey says talks with France to normalise ties going well

    ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey and France are working on a roadmap to normalise ties and talks are going well, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday, adding Ankara was ready to improve ties with its NATO ally if Paris showed the same willingness. Turkey has repeatedly traded barbs with France over policies in Syria, Libya, the eastern Mediterranean and Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as over the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in France. Paris has led a push for EU sanctions on Turkey.

  • Joe Biden could send a message to Black Americans with this reparations bill

    Experts say the H.R. 40 reparations bill could be an early test for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

  • Miya Ponsetto arrested for assaulting Black teen, falsely accusing him of theft

    Miya Ponsetto, the California woman known as “SoHo Karen” for falsely accusing a Black teen of stealing her cell phone and subsequently attacking him at a New York City hotel, has been arrested after nearly two weeks. Ponsetto was taken into custody in Los Angeles after being located as a result of a collaborative investigation led by the Ventura County Sheriff’s office and NYPD, TMZ reports. Ponsetto had traveled back to California following the Dec. 26 incident and had reportedly been evading law enforcement at her mother’s home.

  • Qatar emerges from Gulf spat resolute and largely unscathed

    Qataris awoke to a surprise blockade and boycott by Gulf Arab neighbors 3 1/2 years ago, and this week were jolted again by the sudden announcement that it was all over. Criticism of the boycott was a criminal offense in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt as the four sought to punish Qatar. Qatar’s resolve in the face of the assault showed how little the campaign achieved as the small, but influential U.S. ally holds firm with its ties to Turkey, Iran and Islamists.

  • Protester with feet on Nancy Pelosi's desk is a Trump supporter from Arkansas

    A Capitol protester pictured with his feet up in the offices of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been identified as Richard Barnett, a self-described 'white nationalist' Trump supporter from Arkansas. Mr Barnett, 60, who was one of several protesters who stormed into Ms Pelosi's office, wrote her a "nasty note" and took a letter from her office addressed to a Republican Congressman. After then fleeing outside, he waved the letter around and gave a foul-mouthed interview to a waiting reporters, where he complained of having been squirted with mace spray by police trying to protect the building. He mockingly denied stealing the envelope, saying he had left some loose change on Ms Pelosi's desk by way of payment. “I didn’t steal it. I bled on it because they were macing me and I couldn’t f—ing see,” Mr Barnett said, according to video posted on Twitter by a New York Times reporter. “So I figure ‘well, I’m in her office, I got blood in her office, I’ll put a quarter on her desk even though she ain’t f—ing worth it." He added: "When the police came in with pepper spray, “I said, ‘I paid for this, it’s mine,’ and I left."

  • Australia reviewing funds transfers after Vatican seeks clarification

    Australia's financial watchdog is reviewing its calculation that transfers worth US$1.8 billion had been sent to the country from the Vatican since 2014, after Vatican and Australian Church calls for clarification. A senior Vatican official and an Australian bishop told Reuters last week they had no knowledge of the transfers and would be seeking clarification. The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) cited the amount in response to a parliamentary question by Australian Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.

  • GOP Sen. Josh Hawley loses book deal, mentor, major donor after Capitol assault, gains 2 scathing editorials

    If Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) thought leading the small band of Republican senators to challenge President-elect Joe Biden's electoral victory on Wednesday would benefit him politically, it appears the opposite happened.On Thursday, political mentor former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) called supporting Hawley's Senate bid "the worst mistake I ever made in my life," a GOP donor who gave millions to his campaigns denounced him as "a political opportunist willing to subvert the Constitution," Simon & Schuster canceled his book deal, and Missouri's two biggest newspapers called on him to resign immediately.> From our Francis Chung, Sen. Josh Hawley greeting protesters in the east side of the Capitol before riots began. pic.twitter.com/I8DjBCDuoP> > — Manuel Quinones (@ManuelQ) January 6, 2021"If Hawley had shown any evidence that there’s a conscience in there somewhere, underneath the ambition and the artifice and the uncommon combo of striving and laziness that he's somehow made work for him," he'd resign, The Kansas City Star said in an editorial. "We can't appeal to a sense of decency that doesn't exist. But we can say that Hawley, who gave a raised fist of encouragement to the likes of that proud lout who put his feet up on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk, cannot continue to be our man in Washington, and so will have to be expelled." The Senate, the Star editorialists added, "must do more than censure his treasonous behavior.""Hawley's tardy, cover-his-ass condemnation of the violence ranks at the top of his substantial list of phony, smarmy, and politically expedient declarations," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said in an editorial. "Hawley's presidential aspirations have been flushed down the toilet because of his role in instigating Wednesday's assault on democracy. He should do Missourians and the rest of the country a big favor and resign now."Joplin businessman David Humphreys, who personally and with his family largely bankrolled Hawley's state attorney general and Senate races, told the Missouri Independent on Thursday that Hawley "has shown his true colors as an anti-democracy populist by supporting Trump's false claim of a 'stolen election,'" and urged the Senate to censure him.Simon & Schuster, meanwhile, said it "cannot support Sen. Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom."> pic.twitter.com/NdIkmGbCFI> > — Simon & Schuster (@simonschuster) January 7, 2021Hawley said Simon & Schuster was making a "direct assault on the First Amendment" and threatened to sue for breach of contract.More stories from theweek.com Washington Times corrects widely cited story claiming 'antifa' infiltrated Capitol siege, says 'neo-Nazis' ID'd The decline and fall of Donald Trump Maryland governor said he was repeatedly denied authorization to send National Guard to D.C.

  • Activists: Fire on truck at Syria-Jordan border crossing

    A huge fire erupted in a truck at a border crossing between Syria and Jordan on Thursday, Syrian opposition activists said. The Nassib border crossing with Jordan was reopened in 2018, months after it fell under Syrian government control. Syrian rebels had seized the crossing in 2015, severing a lifeline for the government in Damascus and disrupting a major trade route linking Syria and Jordan, Lebanon and the oil-rich Gulf countries.

  • Newly elected West Virginia lawmaker who filmed himself storming Capitol building could face criminal charges

    A newly elected lawmaker from West Virginia is facing calls to resign and could be imprisoned after filming himself storming the US Capitol building and whipping up the angry mob with chants of “freedom” Derrick Evans, who was sworn into West Virginia’s House of delegates last month, wore a black helmet as he forced his way into the building among a crush of rioters, live streaming the whole episode on the internet. In the now-deleted video, Evans can be heard encouraging people to push into the building, shouting: “They’re in! They’re in! They’re in!” when the doors were finally breached. Referring to himself in third person, he then shouts: “Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!” Other footage shows him warning people not to vandalise anything, as he wandered around the Capitol Rotunda, where historical paintings depict the republic's founding.

  • Surrounded by a shrinking circle of aides, a brooding Trump lays into Pence

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump has increasingly isolated himself in the White House, relying on a small group of diehard loyalists and lashing out at those who dare to cross him, including Vice President Mike Pence, said four sources familiar with the matter. Some longtime advisers are steering clear of talking to Trump after he fired up hundreds of supporters who swarmed the U.S. Capitol in what even fellow Republicans called a deep stain on Trump's legacy. The unprecedented breach of the Capitol building on Wednesday forced Pence and members of Congress to be evacuated just as they had convened to certify the 2020 election victory of President-elect Joe Biden over Trump.