LOS ANGELES – With what the National Weather Service has called “life threatening rain” looming on Sunday and beyond, NASCAR has rescheduled the Busch Light Clash for Saturday night.
Originally scheduled for Sunday evening, the third running of the Clash at the L.A. Coliseum is now set to go off at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET on FS1.
The Clash will then be followed by the NASCAR Mexico Series race that has also been scheduled for Sunday.
Practice for the Clash will be held at 2:35 p.m. PT.
Starting positions for the Clash are the 22 fastest cars in practice, plus one more spot for highest other spot in last year’s points.
Admission for the races will remain free with limited fan services available. Seating will be general admission, with fan entry at Gates 1 & 28.
NASCAR released the following statement:
“Due to the threat of unprecedented severe weather on Sunday, the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Mexico Series race events for the Clash have been moved to Saturday night. Thanks to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Los Angeles Public Safety for their partnership and support to make the schedule adjustment for tonight’s event to ensure a safe experience for fans, competitors, and staff.
“We understand weather conditions may worsen as the day progresses, so we encourage fans to make decisions in the best interest of safety. We appreciate our fans, partners, and everyone associated with this event on this unprecedented event.”
For ticket holders to the Clash, NASCAR will contact them in the coming days on next steps to accommodate for the unprecedented impact on this event.
Pre-paid Sunday parking purchased though ParkWhiz will be fully refunded.
While calling the move “unprecedented,” NASCAR’s Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell said it was the “best option” for keeping fans safe and making sure that both the Clash and Mexico Series races were held.
“As the weather forecast continued to worsen … we started to review Saturday options late last night,” O’Donnell said. “This morning, those obviously sped up and would really applaud the Coliseum for even making this a possibility to the best of what is a really tough situation for the fans and the racing community.”
O’Donnell acknowledged the shift to Saturday as an “inconvenience” for the fans who bought tickets for Sunday that likely wouldn’t get to see the race.
“We’re going to be reaching out to every single fan to see what we can do to make it good on on their end,” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell also acknowledged NASCAR would take a financial hit from the weekend.
“It certainly hurts,” O’Donnell said. “Financially it’s not going to be great, right? Nor will it be from a ratings standpoint, in terms of what could have been. But at the end of the day, it’s the right thing to do.”
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.
If you ran it at Homestead , a few hours from your next event – the 500 , all would be great. Florida is jammed with tourists that potentially would take in the race and then mosey up to Daytona for Speedweek …..seems like a no brainer to me !
The Rain Gods are showing their discontent with NA$CAR already. Not a good omen for NA$CAR.
TSN1 at 7:30 and 8.
TSN5 on now! 1404 on Bell.
Well I thought that the Busch Light Clash exhibition race was scheduled for tomorrow night but it’s not it’s tonight.
How many pissed off fans with tickets? How much money wasted? I’m betting a lot of money on a stupid gimmick. I cannot recall a race moved up before. Pineapple Express, LOL. Just because it came from the west……Hawaii had weather, but the usual winter weather, one could say on some islands more rain than the past few years in winter, but still….LOL