Rain has washed out all of Saturday’s scheduled on-track activity at Bristol Motor Speedway’s dirt track.
The dirt track was already in a muddy condition after heavy rains earlier in the day but the rain had stopped. The Trucks attempted to start the first qualifying race shortly after 5:30 p.m. ET, but visibility issues arose after the windshields and grilles quickly collected mud due to damp track conditions. The first of four qualifying races was red-flagged on Lap 2.
Shortly after the race was red-flagged, the rains returned and the racing was canceled.
Both the Camping World Truck and NASCAR Cup Series were scheduled to set their main-event lineups through four 15-lap qualifying races apiece. But those preliminaries were washed out, and the starting fields for both races have been set by owner points.
The Camping World Truck Series Pinty’s Truck Race on Dirt was rescheduled from a Saturday night start to approximately a 9 p.m. ET green flag Sunday (FS2, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), after Cup Series’ inaugural Food City Dirt Race, the seventh points-paying event of the Cup season. That event is slated for Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET (FOX, PRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).
Kyle Larson will start from the pole position in the Cup Series event, but he is expected to drop to the rear after changing his engine following Friday’s final practice. John Hunter Nemechek is set to start first in the Camping World Trucks.
Trevor Collins, Jessica Friesen and Ryan Newman are non-qualifiers for the Truck race. JR Hefner already had dropped out because of extensive damage to his No. 3 truck sustained during practice.
Based on observation of the track and tire wear in Friday’s practices, NASCAR made changes to the format of the Sunday’s Cup race. Stage breaks will come after Laps 100 and 200 (instead of 75 and 150 as originally announced) and competition cautions have been added after Laps 50 and 150. Each car also receives an additional set of tires.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.