Daytona 500 Rained Out on Sunday for First Time in 54 Races

Photo Credit: Russell LaBounty/Autostock

As much as it is to a picnic, a rainy day is a nemesis to auto racing. While road racing tours such as Formula 1, sports car and even (on limited basis) the IZOD INDYCAR racing series have developed counter-measures like rain tires, windshield wipers and defoggers that allows the competition to continue in most weather, events running on oval tracks are still held at the mercy of nature. Impractical and unsafe even when using any current technology, it is mostly stock cars (specifically those of NASCAR) that suffer the severe effects of precipitation. While rain delays and postponements are far from unexpected by drivers, teams and fans of NASCAR, one major event ran a frankly defying streak of delivering a race on the day scheduled.

Since their inaugural event at Daytona International Speedway in 1959, the tour now known as the NASCAR Sprint Cup stock car series has competed at the Daytona 500 on Sunday. In fact, in 53 years, the Daytona 500 has run to the full 200-lap distance on all but 5 occasions. Once scheduled to a shortened 450-mile distance in 1974 due to an oil crisis, the other 4 occasion in 1965, 1966, 2003 and 2009 were due to rain past the halfway point in the Daytona 500 race. For 53 runnings, the Daytona International Speedway appeared to have control over the most uncontrollable elements. Building an incredible winning streak for fans to expect to see their favourite stock car drivers compete on the 2.5-oval track, the streak ended at 53 this weekend.

Despite several attempts to jet-dry the asphalt racing surface over a four-hour period, a stubborn weather system sailing through Daytona Beach continued to defeat any effort. Thanks what turned out to be three-quarters of an inch of rain through the course of the afternoon on February 26th, the Daytona 500 was postponed for the first time.

On Monday, NASCAR will attempt to start the Great American Race at noon-time eastern. Unfortunately, forecasts call for an elevated chance of precipitation throughout the afternoon Monday(between 70-90 percent). Thunderstorms are also predicted as likely on Monday's during the attempt to start the Daytona 500. NASCAR and Daytona International Speedway does have optimism that rainfall may slow or cease long enough to dry the track sufficiently for competition.

Set to start the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, drivers, teams and fans will hope the green flag drops at noon Monday.

Super Soggy Suzuka Caps Saturday F1 Action: Qualifying to be held Sunday

Day 2 of the Japanese Grand Prix has amounted to a full wash-out due to heavy precipitation. Perhaps better identified as 'Wipeout Japan', an estimated daily accumulation totaling nearly 50 millimeters of rain made the Formula 1 cars stay garage-dwelling for the duration of Saturday. Even with full wet weather tires, the presence of standing water on the Suzuka Circuit made the conditions impossible to for those Bridgestone tires to obtain any grip.

Delayed as rain fell, Formula 1 officials were eventually faced with the only sensible solution was to postpone the qualifying session for the Japanese Grand Prix to Sunday morning. Though the precipitation is excepted to continue through Saturday night into race day, there is expectations that the rain will let up into the day.

Prior to choice to postpone qualifying, an early Saturday practice session proceeded with little participation. In the 3rd practice session, only two cars recorded lap times eager to get the names of their respective teams and drivers at the top of a Formula 1 speed chart in 2010. The Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso in the hands of Jaime Alguersuari tip-toed around the wet 3.609 mile Suzuka track with a 1 minute, 55.902 second lap time. Second-fastest (only fastest rather loosely) was the Virgin-Cosworth piloted by Timo Glock running almost 11.6 seconds below the pace of Alguersuari.

As qualifying will be scheduled just three hours before the start of the race, teams at the Japanese Grand Prix will be busy during a packed and likely still wet Sunday.

Rain at Texas Motor Speedway Moves NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide races to Monday

Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images


With Texas rain showers having postponed the NASCAR Nationwide O'Reilly 300 on Saturday, the precipitation continued to soak the Texas Motor Speedway Sunday effectively scrubbing the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Samsung Mobile 500. For the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, this is the second time in the past three races of 2010 that rain has rescheduled the start to Monday.

Having planned to run the rain-out NASCAR Nationwide Series event tonight (Sunday) after the Sprint Cup Samsung Mobile 500, the schedule has transitioned to Monday with the Sprint Cup race starting at noon Eastern time with the NASCAR Nationwide Series race set to follow at 5 p.m. later in that day. It appears very likely that both races can be completed tomorrow with Monday weather for Fort Worth, Texas showing only a slim chance for rain showers.

With Tony Stewart starting on his 1st pole in over 4 years, the NASCAR Sprint Cup will roll live on Fox while ESPN will show the Nationwide series' O'Reilly 300 with Joey Logano leading the field to green.

Heavy Rain Delays IZOD IndyCar Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg to Monday Morning

Photo Credit: Steve Swope

The start of the IZOD IndyCar Series' Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg has been rescheduled for 10AM Monday morning as a large storm blows through the Florida area mid-afternoon Sunday. Race organizers, St Petersburg city officials, broadcast partners as well as the series made the decision at 3:30 PM on Sunday afternoon as up to a inch of rain coated the surface of the Florida temporary street course. IRL President of Competition and Racing Operations Brian Barnhart elaborated that standing water, track drainage, and potential driver visibility were reasons for the postponement of the race. "While our cars are equipped to run in the rain, we take the safety of our teams, event workers and fans very seriously. And with those conditions, even with the Firestone Firehawk rain tires and rain lights that we have, visibility would still be an issue." Barnhart commented.

Unlike the NASCAR race at Martinsville Speedway, the IZOD IndyCar Series is faced with the fact they're running on a temporary street course incorporating roadways and part of an airport. For open wheel racing, past events with rain dampening temporary street circuits have resulted in some disgraceful black-eyes.

The most notorious American open wheel event to be broken by wet weather was the Surfers Paradise CART race in 2002. A monsoon-like rain resulting in a 9-car accident made it impossible for the field to safety compete after a mere 8 green flag laps were run on the Australian street course. Because of the need to convert the circuit back to public roads by the last day, CART elected to run the field under the yellow flag for 30 laps in order to push the race beyond the halfway mark. Making for a ridiculous parade, the Surfer's Paradise finish was also marred with additional controversy. With the race distance marked at 60 laps, it was suggested that CART waited until lap 40 to call the event because they didn't want than halfway leader Michael Andretti to claim a victory. Andretti had than announced plans to run the competing IRL Series, this defection might have provoked CART to hold off on declaring the race finished until Mario Dominguez took the lead.

In reaction to the postponement of the IZOD IndyCar event, Sao Paulo runner-up Ryan Hunter-Reay stated "This is probably the best turnout for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg we've ever had, so to have them all out here and have them go home and come back out tomorrow is a disappointment for us." Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing's Hideki Mutoh supported the IRL/IndyCar decision saying candidly "If we were to go out and try to race, maybe there would only be one car that would finish."

Predictions call for rain showers to continue into the morning hours of Monday but the IZOD IndyCar vehicles are equipped to run in light to moderate rain thanks to Firestone wet weather tires. ESPN 2 will air the race live in the United States. With the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg scheduled to be shown on ABC, the rescheduling to the cable sports network was an unexpected but unfortunate loss for the teams, drivers and sponsors in the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series.

Weather permitting, Will Power in the #12 Penske Racing car will lead off the 24-car field.

Rain Forces NASCAR Sprint Cup Martinsville Event Postponed to Tomorrow

Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

Stopping the force of a combined 32,000 horsepower, the Virginia rain has prevented any of the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500's laps from being recorded. Holding the race's open ceremonies under the hope that the than-light rain would dissipate for clearer skies, race plans at Martinsville Speedway would have likely seen the event run to at least the 250 lap halfway point (making the race an official event). Before 3PM, NASCAR were forced to squash any plans of racing on Sunday announcing that the race's start will be postponed to tomorrow (Monday, March 29th) at noon. Serving as an iffy rescheduling, forecasts on the Martinsville, Virginia area tomorrow still calls for a 30% chance of showers. However, there's a 70% chance that at least half of the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 will be run.

With Kevin Harvick starting off in front, the race at Martinsville Speedway for the NASCAR Sprint Cup series will be shown live on Fox.