Yahoo Finance NASCAR: Rain cancels Cup Series heat races on Bristol dirt and pushes Truck race to Sunday
NASCAR's Bristol dirt track weekend is being messed up by rain.
Rain canceled heat races for both the Cup Series and Truck Series on Saturday and forced the Truck Series race to move from Saturday night to Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET (Fox Sports 2). The Cup Series race is still scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. ET (Fox) on Sunday.
NASCAR and Bristol Motor Speedway converted the half-mile concrete track into a dirt track for the weekend as the Cup Series is scheduled to run its first race on dirt since 1970. Both the Cup Series and Truck Series races were scheduled to have heat races to set the starting lineup.
The lineups will instead be set by the formula NASCAR has used for races without practice and qualifying. Kyle Larson is set to first for the Cup Series race while John Hunter Nemechek starts first for the Truck Series race. But Larson will have to start last because his team replaced an engine on Friday during practice.
From too dusty to too wet
Practice for both the Cup Series and Truck Series featured a very dusty track. The track lost grip as the day went on and the dust from the main racing groove in the corners started accumulating toward the wall.
Rain overnight and during the day on Saturday then made the track too wet. NASCAR thought it had a track that was ready to go for heat races on Saturday afternoon but the first Truck heat race was called after less than two laps because mud was caked all over numerous trucks' windshields.
snow scrapers aren’t only good for snow pic.twitter.com/DTKRpHzOK1
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) March 27, 2021
The rain returned not long after that heat race was called.
The forecast for Sunday isn't much better than Saturday's. While a washout isn't certain, there's a decent chance that NASCAR could have to run one or both races on Monday given the amount of precipitation that could fall on the track.
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