{"id":810879,"date":"2026-07-18T21:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T21:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/810879\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T21:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T21:32:11","slug":"is-nascar-at-north-wilkesboro-qualifying-delayed-today-when-will-it-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/810879\/","title":{"rendered":"Is NASCAR at North Wilkesboro Qualifying Delayed Today? When Will it Start?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Christopher\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Is NASCAR qualifying at North Wilkesboro delayed today? Get the latest weather updates, delay status, and official race updates.\n<\/p>\n

Rain rolled into the North Carolina foothills as North Wilkesboro Speedway prepared to send NASCAR Cup Series cars out for qualifying Saturday, forcing officials into a lightning hold ahead of Sunday\u2019s Window World 450. <\/p>\n

The stoppage hit during a window already squeezed tight, with practice and qualifying sharing a single two-hour block scheduled from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET, according to Jayski\u2019s Silly Season<\/a>. Teams now watch the radar instead of the clock. <\/p>\n

The qualifying runs are scheduled to air on truTV<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

North Wilkesboro Speedway\u2019s Rain Delay Timeline<\/p>\n

Storms moved in fast, and hard. The track\u2019s own social channels confirmed the hold directly, warning fans to seek shelter and watch for updates, according to a post from North Wilkesboro Speedway<\/a>. NASCAR reporters on site, including Jordan Bianchi, John Newby, Bozi Tatarevic and Scotte Sprinkle, each posted photos and video of the downpour and the lightning that came with it as the system swept across the property. <\/p>\n

Bob Pockrass, one of the sport\u2019s most closely followed insiders, indicated the delay looked more like a pop-up summer storm than a threat to the entire session, noting NASCAR\u2019s tendency to ride out short bursts of weather rather than scrub qualifying outright. Short pop-up storms are common across the North Carolina foothills in mid-summer, often clearing as quickly as they arrive, and NASCAR has leaned on that pattern before at short tracks with tight scheduling windows. <\/p>\n

Conditions on property backed that read. Track surfaces had already dried out from an earlier soak that interrupted Truck Series activity<\/a> hours before Cup cars were due on track, a sign the short 0.625-mile oval can shed water fast once the sky clears. Sunshine and heat<\/a> had returned by early afternoon before the second wave of weather arrived. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

North Wilkesboro Speedway\u2019s Forecast Through Race Day<\/p>\n

The bigger question is whether more storms are lined up behind this one. AccuWeather\u2019s hourly outlook for the track<\/a> showed thunderstorm chances climbing toward 50% through the evening hours, with heat indexes still pushing past 90 degrees even as the rain moved through the area. <\/p>\n

Sunday doesn\u2019t look clean, either. Forecasts for race day carry roughly a 30 to 40 percent chance of scattered showers and storms, according to the National Weather Service\u2019s point forecast for the region. That leaves North Wilkesboro Speedway needing a dry window Sunday evening about as badly as it needs one right now, with little margin built into an already packed weekend schedule. <\/p>\n

NASCAR has options if Saturday\u2019s session gets swallowed entirely. The sanctioning body can set the field by owner points or a prior race result under its established qualifying procedures, though nothing Saturday evening suggested organizers were ready to abandon on-track time without a longer fight against the radar first. Sunday\u2019s forecast gives NASCAR some breathing room, since afternoon storm chances are lower than the overnight numbers now on the board. <\/p>\n

Assuming the skies eventually cooperate, qualifying sets the 40-car lineup for Sunday\u2019s Window World 450, with the green flag scheduled for 7:14 p.m. ET on TNT. The Cup Series field returns to points racing at the short track for a 450-lap grind broken into three stages, one of the season\u2019s marquee short-track dates and a race that had already sold out its grandstands well ahead of the green flag, according to North Wilkesboro Speedway. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tJonathan Vankin<\/a> JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist who covers MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, boxing, golf, and Olympic sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Newspaper and Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering the Olympics, pro baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Is NASCAR qualifying at North Wilkesboro delayed today? Get the latest weather updates, delay status, and official…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-810879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}