NASCAR: Rain has interfered with 60% of 2020’s Cup races

Nine of the first 15 races on the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series schedule have featured some sort of interference due to bad weather, including the last four.

No phrase has appeared on Fox and Fox Sports 1 more often throughout the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season than “NASCAR Cup Series Racing at (location) has been delayed due to weather”.

That statement held true on Saturday afternoon for the race at Pocono Raceway, which did take place, but only after a rain delay — and only after the Truck Series race which was supposed to take place beforehand was postponed to Sunday morning due to rain as well.

Then after Sunday’s Truck Series race and Xfinity Series race at the three-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Tricky Triangle in Long Pond, Pennsylvania kicked off the tripleheader, the first in NASCAR history at one track on one day, this statement held true again.

Lightning delayed the start of the Cup Series race, and rain further delayed it.

The most recent four Cup Series races and nine of the 15 races which have been contested so far this season — 60% of all races — have now been affected in some way due to bad weather.

Here’s a list of those nine races.

Daytona International Speedway – Suspended on Sunday, February 16, completed on Monday, February 17

Las Vegas Motor Speedway – Qualifying washed out on Saturday, February 22

Darlington Raceway – Moved up but then delayed on Wednesday, May 20;  ended 20 laps early under red flag

Charlotte Motor Speedway – Red-flagged after getting underway on Sunday, May 24; finished in the wee hours of Monday, May 25

Charlotte Motor Speedway – Postponed from Wednesday, May 27 to Thursday, May 28; Red-flagged after getting underway on Thursday

Homestead-Miami Speedway – Red-flagged twice after getting underway on Sunday, June 14

Talladega Superspeedway – Postponed from Sunday, June 21 to Monday, June 22; Red-flagged after getting underway on Monday

Pocono Raceway – Delayed on Saturday, June 27

Pocono Raceway – Delayed on Sunday, June 28; Red-flagged after getting underway as well

Now here’s a much shorter list of the six races which weren’t affected by rain.

Auto Club Speedway (Sunday, March 1)

Phoenix Raceway (Sunday, March 8)

Darlington Raceway (Sunday, May 17)

Bristol Motor Speedway (Sunday, May 31)

Atlanta Motor Speedway (Sunday, June 7)

Martinsville Speedway (Wednesday, June 10)

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On the plus side, the forecast for the race at Martinsville Speedway looked daunting, but it ended up being run in its entirety. Unfortunately, that race, which took place nearly three weeks ago, is still the most recent race to run without any kind of rain interference.

Had it needed to be postponed, it would not have been contested the following day due to the fact that it was a midweek race and NASCAR had to travel to Homestead-Miami Speedway that weekend. The alternatives were either having two races at Homestead-Miami Speedway or moving the Martinsville Speedway midweek race back by one week to the following Wednesday, June 17. Fortunately, neither option had to be considered.

Above all, even with all of these setbacks, NASCAR has fortunately been able to manage these situations well and run all of the races within one day of their initially scheduled dates.

The next race on the schedule is the Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400, which is set to be broadcast live on NBC from Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning at 4:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 5.