The Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway has been delayed from its original green flag start time of 7:57 p.m. Saturday evening due to heavy rain. The race has been rescheduled to Sunday at 11 a.m. ET and will be televised on TNT.
NASCAR officials made the decision shortly before 9 p.m. Saturday evening.
Joie Chitwood III, president of Daytona International Speedway said, “We had a tough day with rain most of the day and from a radar perspective, it was popping up around us. We (didn’t think) it was going to get this bad, this long. We worked with NASCAR as much as we could in terms of the timing.”
He continued, explaining the factors that went into the decision, “You reach a point right now where as it continues to rain, if we use an hour and 45 minutes to dry this track, which is a really short amount of time using Air Titan and the jets, typically we’d be well over two hours to dry the track. You start thinking about an 11 p.m. start which means you finish the event anywhere from 2 a.m. to a little bit later. You think about public safety, getting people home, all those things. With the rain still around us and coming down, we would not be able to dry the track for a reasonable start time tonight.”
David Gilliland will lead the Sprint Cup field to green Sunday after capturing his first pole of 2014 in a rain- shortened qualifying session that Gilliland called, “uncontrolled chaos.” It is his third career pole, all scored at restrictor-plate tracks.
Reed Sorensen will start second, followed by Landon Cassill, Bobby Labonte and Jimmie Johnson. Dale Earnhardt Jr., starting in the seventh position, will attempt to join the ranks of only five others, who have swept both of the annual races at Daytona.
The complete lineup for the Coke Zero 400:
- David Gilliland
- Reed Sorenson
- Landon Cassill
- Bobby Labonte
- Jimmie Johnson
- Matt Kenseth
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- David Ragan
- Jeff Gordon
- Greg Biffle
- Carl Edwards
- Tony Stewart
- Kevin Harvick
- Kasey Kahne
- Aric Almirola
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Cole Whitt
- Marcos Ambrose
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Ryan Newman
- Paul Menard
- Casey Mears
- Austin Dillon
- AJ Allmendinger
- Trevor Bayne
- Brad Keselowski
- Michael McDowell
- Joey Logano
- Danica Patrick
- Brian Vickers
- Justin Allgaier
- Michael Annett
- Josh Wise
- Clint Bowyer
- Kyle Larson
- Jamie McMurray
- Denny Hamlin
- Terry Labonte
- Kyle Busch
- Kurt Busch
- Michael Waltrip
- Ryan Truex
- Alex Bowman
