You take away the double event races to start
Charlotte and Vegas each drop one
2 at Pomona might need to be looked at as well. With all of the restrictions and PIA of California, it might be wise to look elsewhere.
Kansas might be taken away on it's own, so not counting Pomona that is 3 to start with and probably a good first step. Dropping 6-8 might be too much at first.
Like Bobby said in the piece, the per race sponsor fee stays the same. You might not get $3 mil per year now but $2.7(or whatever number) instead. You are not going to as many races so you don't need as much UNLESS, and here is the key to this working.
How did many of us life long fans become a fan? For many it wasn't a national event. We went and saw some type of match race or booked in show at our local track. Those are now few and far between.
Norwalk puts on a huge one-day race (Night of Fire) Force shows up with his team and the Bader's book in a few others as well. All involved make money that day, sponsor gets exposure, fans are happy, dogs and cats are getting along...it's a beautiful thing. Cordova does this with the World Series and there are a few others.
With less races, we open up the opportunity for teams to take on more of these money makers AND it spreads racing to other areas. Think about it, some smaller track in Idaho, Oklahoma or Rhode Island can't fit a full NHRA national event in their space but, they can book in 4 Nitro cars and build a show around that. Rather than hoping a new fan drops $60 to come to race for the first time at a nationals or maybe gets hooked via TV, we now are taking the racing to the people. Make it an affordable ticket, let the team sell their shirts and such and you solve a few issues.
With less national events on the schedule, more of these opportunities would open up, it would allow teams to make money (which with the prize money at NHRA events makes that difficult) still gets the sponsors out there and hopefully draws new fans. Once at a track, they are more likely to watch the next national event on TV then, which would boost those ratings which in turn makes more sponsors happy.