By: Ashley McCubbin

Just a day after Stewart-Haas Racing confirmed they had a pair of COVID-19 cases, a second team has stepped out to confirm a positive case within their organization.

Team Penske released a statement on Saturday they have had an employee test positive for the virus.

“Earlier this week, Team Penske had one of its team members report positive for COVID-19,” the statement read. “This employee has been in quarantine all week and has recovered without any further symptoms. Due to the team’s stringent protocols, only a few of our personnel had reason to quarantine and none of those individuals are experiencing any symptoms. The identities of those impacted, along with additional details, will not be released due to privacy concerns.”

On Friday, SHR confirmed two of their shop employees had tested positive, and these individuals did not have exposure to those who travel to the track as a result of strict protocols put in place.

Currently, concern has not arose at the tracks with whether events should continue or not due to these incidents being isolated to shop employees. Per protocols, NASCAR Executive Vice President Steve O’Donnell said recently things have been going smoothly.

“We’ve certainly had some folks who may have presented some symptoms that we’ve turned away early. That’s up to them to disclose if there were any issues in terms of did someone have COVID or not, but I would say (the protocols have) worked 100% according to plan,” he commented. “We’ve not had challenges during an event where anything has come up where we’ve had to react during the hours that the garage was open. It’s been if there were any issues prior to someone entering the facility, which have been very minimal.

“We expect there will be some challenges. We need to continue to do our due diligence. We need to continue to wear our masks. We need to continue to follow the protocols.”

While currently not concerning, it could bring forth problems if this spreads to other teams having positive tests or individuals at the track beginning to test positive. Already, other sports, like Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League have not restarted up, and seen teams close practice facilities due to positive tests.