Coke Zero 400 Postponed Until Sunday Due to Rain

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:

1. David Gilliland
2. Reed Sorenson
3. Landon Cassill
4. Bobby Labonte
5. Jimmie Johnson
6. Matt Kenseth
7. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
8. David Ragan
9. Jeff Gordon
10. Greg Biffle
11. Carl Edwards
12. Tony Stewart
13. Kevin Harvick
14. Kasey Kahne
15. Aric Almirola
16. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
17. Cole Whitt
18. Marcos Ambrose
19. Martin Truex Jr.
20. Ryan Newman
21. Paul Menard
22. Casey Mears
23. Austin Dillon
24. AJ Allmendinger
25. Trevor Bayne
26. Brad Keselowski
27. Michael McDowell
28. Joey Logano
29. Danica Patrick
30. Brian Vickers
31. Justin Allgaier
32. Michael Annett
33. Josh Wise
34. Clint Bowyer
35. Kyle Larson
36. Jamie McMurray
37. Denny Hamlin
38. Terry Labonte
39. Kyle Busch
40. Kurt Busch
41. Michael Waltrip
42. Ryan Truex
43. Alex Bowman