(By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service)
Posted: Sunday,March 28th, 2010
MARTINSVILLE, Va.—Persistent rain showers forced postponement of Sunday’s scheduled Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway until noon ET Monday.
NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Kevin Harvick will start the sixth event of the season from the pole, after rain washed out Friday’s qualifying session and the grid was set according to owner points.
MARTINSVILLE, VA - MARCH 28: A view of cars under cover during a rain delay for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway on March 28, 2010 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Matt Kenseth, who trails Harvick by one point in the Cup standings, will take the green flag from the outside of the front row. Four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson, winner of five of the past seven races at the .526-mile short track, will start third.
AJ Allmendinger, who starts 21st, didn’t mind the postponement—he’s just happy to be racing.
“Put it this way,” Allmendinger said. “I’ve been on the side of it to where, when rain affected qualifying or something like that, it made me miss the race. Having to spend a couple years like that (forced to qualify on speed), I’m in a position now where I’m just happy whenever we get to race.
“Yeah. It’s difficult. It stinks for the fans and all the teams, but the fortunate thing is we’ve got an off-week coming up, so it’s not like this is going to put everybody way behind. I’m just happy. I’m happy whenever I get to be in the car—whether it’s Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. When we get to drop the green, I know we’ll have a good car, and we’ll be ready to go.”
Monday’s race will be the first Cup event featuring a rear spoiler instead of a rear wing on NASCAR’s new Cup car. Drivers have been testing for weeks in preparation for the permanent return to the spoiler.
“For me, they put that spoiler on the car, and I’ve run more testing laps than I have in two years. And its like, man, we need to race so we don’t have to test anymore,” said Harvick, who won Saturday’s Kroger 250 Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville. “But that’s just how I feel about it.
“You can test and test and test. But until you drop the green flag with 43 cars out there, that’s really the only time you can tell what’s going on, because there’s no way to simulate that.”
Notes: The last Cup race run on Monday was Aug. 10, 2009, at Watkins Glen, a week after Denny Hamlin won a rain-delayed event at Pocono. … The last Martinsville race run on Monday was the Old Dominion 500, won by Ricky Craven on Oct. 15, 2001.
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