For road course races and short tracks, a bit of rain moving across the race track is no major problem; but on a high banked tri-oval racing in the rain can be a disaster waiting to happen.
With that in mind, NASCAR has announced that the start of the Daytona 500 programming on February 15 will start an hour earlier at 1:30pm instead of the scheduled 2:30pm eastern time.
The official start time for the race is set for 2:13pm est.
The National Weather Service is predicting a 50% chance of rain in the Daytona area on Sunday afternoon with more severe weather expected as the day moves on.
NASCAR is hoping to get all 500 miles of the race in after the adjusted start time with minimal delays.
Even at speeds that have the drivers running laps at less than one minute, the 188 laps around the 2.5 mile track still requires over three hours of racing time. And every race fan knows that there is always a better than even chance of “The Big One” taking out several drivers and quite a bit of time to clean up.
Kyle Busch earned the pole in single car qualifying on Wednesday night with Chase Briscoe starting the race alongside on the front row.
The Daytona 500 will run before a sell out crowd for the eleventh year in a row.