After several rain showers through Sunday evening (Feb. 16), NASCAR has postponed the Daytona 500 to Monday, Feb. 17, at 4 p.m. ET.
The green flag for The Great American Race was originally scheduled to wave at 3:18 p.m. ET on Sunday, but rain hit the track with one lap to go in the pace laps.
The race finally did start a little over an hour later, and 20 laps were completed before the caution, and eventually the red, flag flew for more rain. Despite several attempts to dry the track, NASCAR was unsuccessful due to multiple showers popping up.
Because the race didn’t meet the halfway point of the 200-lap race, it will be completed on Monday afternoon, starting at 4 p.m. ET. The rest of the event will air on FOX.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020. Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.
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Why is nascar waiting so late in the day to restart the race. Havent they ever heard of afternoon thunderstorms in Florida. Stupid decision. But maybe i dont see the big picture whatever that is.
I’d be interested to know how many times the 500 had weather issues before NASCAR started either running it a week later (as they did for a few years) or with a start time later than 1 PM Eastern.
I swear, if you want to make it rain anywhere in the world, just schedule a NASCAR race.
Still, had the race started at 1:00 like it should, it would have been well past halfway by the time the rain started.
It used to start at 12:45 and the broadcast started at 12:40. Now the initial pre-event (not race) crap started from 1:00 til 2:30 and then from 2:30 til 3:30 for the green flag. Isn’t progress wonderful?
it they had started at noon or 12:30 most of race would had been ran by time rain came.
i know used to is dead and gone, but used to rush home from church and eat lunch and it would be racing on tv.
SO… I didn’t have anything else going on, and despite swearing I wouldn’t watch any races this year, broke down and tuned in. I noticed it took less than 20 laps for everyone to get single file for parade laps until the final 20 laps of wrecking/caution. I’m thinking the rain was a blessing in disguise, saving me from certain disappointment had I been able to watch the entire race.