The March 22 NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway may be postponed due to concerns around COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, Miami-Dade County officials announced Thursday, March 12.
The county’s mayor, Carlos Gimenez, issued a statement Thursday announcing that the county is under a state of emergency.
“Although we do not have community spread at this time, we want to take the preemptive steps to keep it that way,” Gimenez said in a release. “Therefore, I have decided to suspend the operation of the Miami-Dade County Youth Fair, the Miami Open tennis tournament, the MIA 5K run, and all major events at the American Airlines Arena. The March 22 NASCAR race at the Homestead Miami Speedway is postponed at this time. NASCAR officials will decide whether or not to hold the race without fans.”
At press time, NASCAR officials had not yet announced whether NASCAR would field the race without spectators or if the race would indeed be postponed.
NASCAR’s schedule has both the Cup and Xfinity series at Homestead that weekend, with the latter scheduled to mark the race-a-year return of Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the driver’s seat. The mayor’s release did not mention the March 21 Xfinity event, though it’s assumed it would be affected as well.
NASCAR has not yet announced whether any additional measures besides those announced yesterday will be in effect at this weekend’s racing at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Cup, Xfinity and Gander RV & Outdoors Truck series.
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Rutherford is the managing editor of Frontstretch, a position he gained in 2015 after serving on the editing staff for two years. At his day job, he's a journalist covering music and rock charts at Billboard. He lives in New York City, but his heart is in Ohio -- you know, like that Hawthorne Heights song.
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Give it two weeks. The entire season will be canceled.
just wait til a team member tests positive
This is quickly escalating and I would not be surprised if some sort of measure is taken as early as Atlanta this weekend. How long is it till a NASCAR employee catches the virus?
It sounds to me that eventually we will all be exposed to it. I’m not sure what any of our feeble measures are going to do. At best delay some people from getting it until later. Seriously, what is the purpose of any of these measures. It ain’t going away and no vaccine is in sight for at least a year. We might as well duck and cover because that would be just as effective. The genie is already out of the bottle.
Feel the exact same way here Bill. Especially after watching that Michael Osterholm interview yesterday.
Google Armstrong Economics “The Cyclical Nature of Disease”. Takeaway is TB, Hep B, Pneumonia, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, etc. have orders of magnitude more daily deaths than COVID19.
Mike, just my take, but the way I see it, the difference is every one of those ailments have either a cure, a vaccine or a treatment that reduces the symptoms. Covid 19 currently has none of those and the mortality rate is already 10 times greater than the flu.
That and they all provide symptoms prior to becoming contagious…this Virus is contagious days before showing symptoms making it practically undetectable :(
I am young and healthy and low risk, it is me unknowingly carrying this virus to an elderly high risk patient that is driving the concern from WHO
HYSTERIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whip the sheep into a frenzy!!!!!!!!!! Total bullshit. The media is disgusting…stay calm, but we will scare you 24/7!