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.

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.

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Race at Daytona Rained Out; To Run on Saturday

Photo Credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images


As projected by weather forecasters on Thursday, a large disturbance of rain clouds flew over top of Daytona Beach. Dampening all of Friday's activities connected to Hersheys Speedways at Daytona International Speedway, the soaked 2.5 mile oval halted NASCAR's Nationwide Series qualifying for the Drive4COPD 300 and later the Friday night Camping World Truck Series NextEra Energy Resources 250 race.

Though mostly clear skies are predicted for the rest of NASCAR's big opening weekend (including the rescheduled Camping World Truck Series NextEra Energy Resources 250) the daily temperatures (according to www.weather.com) will certainly be cool. With the daily-high temperature running as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit lower than average for this period, Saturday will be in the lower 50s at the peak of the day. Sunday is reported to be a mild improvement but race fans will still require a heavy, long sleeve shirt or jacket to enjoy stock car racing's most popular 500 mile race.