With the threat of Tropical Storm Hermine looming around the southern states NASCAR was forced to cancel all on-track activities for Friday, the first day of NASCAR’s second-annual throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway.
The track’s slated for double duty, with the XFINITY Series on Saturday afternoon and the Sprint Cup Series racing in the Bojangles’ Southern 500 on Sunday evening. Friday was set to be the warm up day, as both series were scheduled to have two practice sessions, starting with the XFINITY Series at noon on Friday.
With the cancellation, NASCAR is preparing an updated schedule for the weekend, removing qualifying for both the Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series.
After what’s listed as a 100 percent chance of precipitation on Friday, Saturday and Sunday look to be warm and sunny, typical from September in South Carolina. Saturday calls for 82 degrees, while Sunday’s high will be roughly 85 degrees. Both days call for a 10 percent chance of rain.
The Cup Series will have two practice sessions on Saturday. The green flag will fly on opening practice at 11:00 a.m. ET Saturday morning. Final practice will follow at 1:30 p.m. ET. The XFINITY Series will see the track for just 55 minutes before the 300-mile race begins Saturday afternoon.
Qualifying for both series has been cancelled. Kevin Harvick will start from pole in the Cup Series and Paul Menard will lead the XFINITY Series to green on Saturday.
Dustin joined the Frontstretch team at the beginning of the 2016 season. 2020 marks his sixth full-time season covering the sport that he grew up loving. His dream was to one day be a NASCAR journalist, thus why he attended Ithaca College (Class of 2018) to earn a journalism degree. Since the ripe age of four, he knew he wanted to be a storyteller.