NASCAR has enlisted the help of canines from 360 K9 Group to sniff out COVID-19 during the Atlanta Motor Speedway race weekend that includes races for all three national series and culminates in Sunday’s running of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 by the NASCAR Cup Series.
“We think that these dogs and this capability is going to allow us to rapidly confirm that all of those people entering the essential footprint on Sunday — that’s race teams, that’s NASCAR officials, that’s the vendors that work inside the garage — all those folks are COVID-free or not,” NASCAR Managing Director of Racing Operations Tom Bryant said, as quoted in a NASCAR.com article. “The ability to do that has kind of been the math problem that we have continuously tried to solve since March of last year.”
The dogs will only be used to assist in the detection of COVID-19 in essential personnel in the track’s garage area. If a dog detects the possibility of a COVID-19 infected, the person in question will undergo screening.
Neither fans entering the grandstands nor drivers will be affected by the addition of the dogs. Since NASCAR’s return to racing after a hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, drivers have not been allowed in garage areas at tracks.
COVID-detecting dogs have been used for other sports organizations this year, including the Miami Heat NBA team.
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