Following the recent stoppage in racing due to COVID-19, the National Hot Rod Association(NHRA) has released the revised racing schedule. This is a tentative schedule release due to the ever flowing situation with COVID-19.
Wednesday, the NHRA officials released the revised schedule to the public with many changes coming to the race schedule.
NHRA Announces Revised Schedule
NHRA officials are looking at a June 5th start date for the season again. This will take place at the newly scheduled date for the Gatornationals.
The season came to a halt prior to the running of the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals held in Gainesville, Florida. Teams were already on the ground before NHRA officials called off the event.
Following Wednesday’s schedule release, the Gatornationals will now be ran June 5-7. This was just one of the many changes released. The race in Florida was moved from it’s already scheduled date of March 13-15.
The schedule went down to 19 races and will have 17 races following the stoppage. Single events held at Atlanta, Epping, New Hampshire and Richmond, Virginia have been cancelled. There will only be one race date at each Las Vegas and Charlotte this season. Las Vegas announced they will not have the Four-Wide race this season and will run the traditional event October 29th-November 1st. Charlotte will move their Four-Wide event to their already planned fall date.
In total, five events have been cancelled from this season’s NHRA race to the championship.
Houston will also have a new place on the schedule on June 12-14th. The shift in schedule has also made a shift in the race already scheduled. Topeka, Kansas will take over the vacated place from Epping. Topeka was scheduled to run June 5th-7th but will now run August 21-23.
NHRA backed this move stating that it was to help with the cost and travel on teams. Prior to racing in Topeka the series will stop at Brainard, Minnesota the week before.
There are no announcements at this time for the plan for the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series and other sportsman classes.
No Points Reset
In addition to the schedule changes, the NHRA announced they have suspended the Countdown to the Championship program for the season. This comes as a result of the schedule condensing which means the points will not reset after Indianapolis.
Following the U.S. Nationals each year the NHRA points reset for the top 10 in each professional category. With the changes they will not reset and will leave the points open during the final race run for the title.
Ticket Refund
There will be many questions revolving around the refund of tickets for the cancelled events or what to do if they are unable to attend those races after they have moved. The NHRA has a page to help answer some of those questions.
They have also listed some different office contacts for various racetracks affected by this situation.
Stay tuned as we will continue to monitor any further changes being made to the schedule.
Updated 2020 NHRA Schedule
Jun. 05-07 | Gainesville, Florida
Jun. 12-14 | Houston, Texas
Jun. 19-21 | Bristol, Tennessee
Jun. 26-28 | Norwalk, Ohio
July 09-12 | Chicago, Illinois
July 17-19 | Denver, Colorado
July 24-26 | Sonoma, California
July 31-Aug. 02 | Seattle, Washington
Aug. 13-16 | Brainerd, Minnesota
Aug. 21-23 | Topeka, Kansas
Sep. 03-07 | Indianapolis, Indiana
Sep. 11-13 | Reading, Pennsylvania
Sep. 18-20 | Charlotte, North Carolina
Oct. 02-04 | St. Louis, Missouri
Oct. 15-18 | Dallas, Texas
Oct. 29-Nov. 1 | Las Vegas, Nevada
Nov. 12-15 | Pomona, California
Note: Makeup dates have been set for the first two races on the new schedule with the weekend of Sep. 25-27 being used for Gainesville, Florida, and Oct. 9-11 being used for Houston.
