The beautiful weather of the week ahead would normally be the perfect sort for the Estevan Motor Speedway to host a weekend of races. They'll just have to hope that kind of weather holds for a bit longer. 

The Speedway has postponed their opening weekend of races that was supposed to take place over the long weekend. Instead, they'll have a full day of races packed into May 30 to help allow for the restrictions due to the pandemic. 

"Basically, we've had to push back opening weekend, which was the 22nd and 23rd, for multiple reasons," said speedway vice president Brad Pierson. "We're just going to push it back to the official reopen day of the government of Saskatchewan and do a single-day event on May 30."

The way the province's roadmap for reopening is laid out, the first step doesn't kick in until three weeks after 70 percent of the population over 40 has received their first dose of the vaccine. That day is May 30, and until that date, the limit on crowds at facilities like the speedway doesn't rise to 150 people. 

"It's pretty difficult to run when you can only have 30 people in the stands," Pierson said. "It's more so just trying to comply with the reopen and get to at least 150 people and get more leniency to run our operation."

The five race categories on May 30 will be the slingshots, the hobby stocks, the sport mods, the stock cars, and the A-mods, with no official start time set in stone yet (Pierson predicted 6:00 in the evening). All five categories and a heat race are on deck for the 30th, which will surely see a lot of drive-up spectators as well as those allowed in the grandstands. 

"The paid parking is always a major factor for us," said Pierson. "It gained a lot of popularity last year with our restrictions and it will be popular again this year."

The loosening of restrictions will be a welcome sight for the speedway, but Pierson said 150 people is a relatively small number for a crowd, so he and the speedway will be keeping an eye on the next phase of restrictions loosening from the province, which won't come until 70 percent of the population over the age of 30 is three weeks removed from their first dose.