{"id":902255,"date":"2026-09-20T00:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T00:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/902255\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T00:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T00:04:11","slug":"will-nascar-bristol-night-race-be-delayed-today-when-does-it-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/902255\/","title":{"rendered":"Will NASCAR Bristol Night Race be Delayed Today? When Does it Start?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

Will the NASCAR Bristol Night Race be delayed today? Here\u2019s the latest weather update and start time for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race.<\/p>\n

Bristol Motor Speedway\u2019s Bass Pro Shops Night Race faces a possible rain delay Saturday night, a development that would stall Kyle Larson\u2019s run from the pole position.<\/p>\n

Storms rolling through East Tennessee threaten more than a soaked grandstand. They could scramble strategy for every driver chasing ground in NASCAR\u2019s Chase field before the laps run out. The track went into a lightning hold about 2 \u00bd hours before the scheduled green flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrong showers are north and NW of the track, moving south at 20 mph. Gusty winds and small hail are possible,\u201d reported RaceWeather at around 5 p.m.<\/a>. \u201cThese storms are expected to weaken around sunset. Some delays are possible early in the race; Wet-weather tires are available for tonight\u2019s race\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Bristol Motor Speedway\u2019s Weather Forecast Tonight<\/p>\n

Saturday started dry around Bristol. Mostly sunny skies pushed highs into the mid-to-upper 80s, with barely any rain on the radar through early afternoon.<\/p>\n

That changed as the sun dropped. Forecasters raised the chance of showers and thunderstorms to 40 percent through Saturday evening<\/a>, according to WeatherBug, with skies turning mostly cloudy and temperatures easing into the mid-60s overnight. Patchy fog is possible after midnight, right in the window a delayed race might still be running.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting some drops and under a lightning hold here at Bristol as far as any activities,\u201d reported motorsports insider Bob Pockrass<\/a> at about 5 p.m. ET. But about two hours later Pockrass said he was \u201coptimistic\u201d<\/a> that the rain had finished for the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cRain and storms continue to generally weaken across the region. However, we are seeing a little back building just to the east (3 miles),\u201d Race Weather wrote at 7 p.m.<\/a> ET. \u201cI\u2019ll continue to monitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lightning also chased fans from the grandstands Friday afternoon, and NASCAR never got Cup cars back out for practice or qualifying. Officials set Saturday\u2019s starting lineup by owner points and recent finishes<\/a>, according to NASCAR.com, putting Larson up front with Joey Logano alongside him and Chase leader Denny Hamlin lined up third.<\/p>\n

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

What A Rain Delay Means For Larson And Chase Field<\/p>\n

Larson arrives rolling. He won last Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway and sits just nine points off the Chase lead. <\/p>\n

\u201cAlways coming into here, I feel confident,\u201d Larson said, as quoted by NASCAR.com. \u201cI do believe we can come here and have a good weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chase Briscoe starts 26th, Chase Elliott 27th, Daniel Su\u00e1rez 28th and Ryan Blaney 29th, all needing a big Saturday whether the race runs clean or gets delayed by rain.<\/p>\n

That group has the most to lose from a shortened night. A rain-truncated race locks in track position at whatever lap it stops, and passing at Bristol\u2019s tight half-mile bowl only gets harder from there.<\/p>\n

NASCAR works off a hard threshold. A race becomes official once it reaches halfway or the end of Stage 2, whichever comes first, and if rain wipes out the rest, whoever\u2019s leading<\/a> at that moment wins. Whether the Bristol event has reached that benchmark won\u2019t be known until later Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Anything short of that threshold means red flags, jet dryers and Air Titans<\/a> working the concrete, then a restart once officials call the surface safe. NASCAR will try to finish the same night before it ever discusses pushing the race to Sunday.<\/p>\n

A new rule works in the leaders\u2019 favor. NASCAR handed crew chiefs<\/a>, not race control, the call on when to switch from wet-weather tires to slicks<\/a>, according to NASCAR.com\u2019s Zach Sturniolo, a change that puts Bristol\u2019s late-race strategy squarely in teams\u2019 hands rather than officials\u2019.<\/p>\n

For now, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race awaits a letup in the lightning, Larson\u2019s pole run on hold and Bristol\u2019s playoff picture no clearer. Whether the Saturday night race wraps up tonight or bleeds into Sunday, Mother Nature isn\u2019t done deciding who gets a real shot at NASCAR\u2019s championship round.<\/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 Will the NASCAR Bristol Night Race be delayed today? Here\u2019s the latest weather update and start time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-902255","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\/902255","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=902255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}