SPARTA, Ky. — The rain came Saturday to Kentucky Speedway and never went away, washing out the third annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Quaker State 400 and postponing it until Sunday afternoon.
The race is scheduled to begin at noon ET on Sunday.
All tickets, credentials and parking passes will be honored. Parking lots will open at 8 a.m. ET and all speedway gates will open at 10 a.m. Tickets remain available and will be on sale when gates open.
Sunday’s forecast, according to weather.com, calls for a high of 79 degrees and a 50 percent chance of scattered storms.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. earned his first pole of the season during Friday’s qualifying session with a lap speed of 183.636 mph. It bettered the previous track qualifying record of 181.818 set by Jimmie Johnson last year. Johnson, the current Sprint Cup points leader, will start third on the grid after turning a lap at 183.144 mph, just behind the 183.306 mph run by Carl Edwards. The top nine qualifiers broke Johnson's previous mark.
Edwards is second in the point standings, trailing Johnson by 25 points. There are 10 races remaining before the series begins the Chase for the Cup portion of its schedule. The top 10 drivers in the point standings automatically qualify for the 10-race Chase for the Cup plus two wild card drivers.
This is the first time a Sprint Cup race has been postponed since the Daytona 500 in 2012. Matt Kenseth, who is currently fifth in points and will start 16th Sunday, won that Daytona 500 when it was run one day later.
The last time a race at the Kentucky Speedway was postponed was July 9, 2004 when an ARCA event was pushed back one day by rain.
