Sunday Rain In Bristol Means Monday Engines Roaring and Closed Schools
Written by Adrian Beecher
Bristol, TN — It’s Monday, and that means race day at Bristol Motor Speedway. The NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series will complete their 500-lap race at the “Worlds Fastest Half-Mile” after Sunday showers brought a halt to the fun just 205 laps into the action.
Bristol and Sullivan County schools have closed to allow the students in the area to attend the race. Following suit with that, Bristol Motor Speedway announced that they are allowing all K-12 students into the track for free to enjoy the race.
Regarding action on the track so far, Brad Keselowski won stage 1 of the event on Sunday. This coming only after an accident with lapped cars got the leader at the time, Ryan Blaney, into trouble and ended his day after leading 99 of 119 laps to that point. Jamie McMurray in the No 1 got into Trevor Bayne in the No. 6 who then clipped the No. 51 of Harrison Rhodes, sending Rhodes up the track clipping Chris Buscher in the No. 37. Then Rhodes car blocked the topside where the leader Ryan Blaney in the No. 12 was headed to avoid the wreck and slammed right into Rhodes. This also brought out the 2nd red flag of the day.
Stage 2 started with Kyle Larson at the front of the field in the No. 42 car and it was filled with cautions and rain. In total there have been eight cautions to this point. With just 25 laps to go in the final stage the field, already under caution for weather, would be taken down the backstretch pit road and parked under red flag weather conditions.
Just shortly before 5:00 pm ET Sunday afternoon, NASCAR and track officials announced that the race would be postponed until Monday at 1:00 pm ET. Overnight, the rain didn’t subside until around 1:00 am, and then in the early morning hours, snow like sleet rained down on the track and area surrounding Bristol Motor Speedway with temperatures dropping at times below 28 degrees.
Things cleared up and the temperature raised to 39 degrees and the Cup series crews uncovered their cars. Then around 11:20 am ET, the rain started to fall again and crews raced to cover their cars. The rain subsided shortly and the sun came out around 11:35 am and the Air Titans took to the track to get it all dried up ahead of the scheduled 1:00 pm start time on FOX, with the radio call on Sirius XM and MRN. NASCAR also confirmed around at 11:55 that the extra coating of PJ1 had been added to the track.
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