NASCAR moved up the start time for Sunday afternoon's 2025 Cup Series season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway from 3:11 p.m. ET to 2:00 p.m. ET in the hopes of giving themselves more wiggle room to get the race in, given the impending bad weather.
It does still look as though there will be storms at the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked Daytona Beach, Florida oval throughout the day, and it is unlikely that the race will be run uninterrupted.
That said, it looks increrasingly likely that the race will be able to be run, in its entirety, on Sunday.
NASCAR fans finally get some good news with Daytona 500 weather update
Both The Weather Channel and AccuWeather are calling for thunderstorms this afternoon, but according to both, things should clear up by around 6:00 p.m. ET.
It appears as though the most likely scenario is that the race gets started as scheduled around 2:00 p.m. ET, gets stopped due to weather at some point, and resumes at some point in the evening once the track, which does have lights, dries.
This scenario most recently unfolded in 2021, when the race was started Sunday afternoon, stopped due to rain, and resumed on Sunday evening. It did not conclude until the wee hours of Monday morning.
A Cup Series race is deemed official once it reaches the end of stage two or the halfway mark, whichever comes first. In the case of the 200-lap Daytona 500, it would be officially after lap 100, as stage two is not scheduled to end until lap 130.
Should more than 100 laps be run before the race is stopped, however, NASCAR would still probably try to wait it out, knowing that the forecast is relatively clear after 6:00 p.m. ET.
With the call to move up the race by 71 minutes having already been made, this year's Daytona 500 is the fourth since 2020 to be altered due to weather. In 2020, the race was started on Sunday, stopped, and not resumed until Monday afternoon/evening, and last year's race was the first to be completely postponed from Sunday to Monday since 2012.
Tune in to Fox for live pre-race coverage from Daytona International Speedway, and stay tuned in for when Daytona 500 coverage officially begins at 1:30 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss the 67th annual "Great American Race"!