NASCAR: Cup Series race at Dover postponed to Monday after 78 laps
Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover was red-flagged 78 laps in because of rain and will be resumed at noon ET Monday on Fox Sports 1.
The race began shortly after 3 p.m. ET at a track that doesn’t have lights, so racing Sunday evening was not an option. Kyle Larson is the leader while his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott runs second. Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr. and William Byron rounded out the top five at the time of the red flag.
The first caution of the race was a NASCAR-scheduled one and came at lap 40 with Denny Hamlin leading. The second happened on lap 67 as rain started to fall.
Sunday’s race is the second in three races to be delayed by rain, though the rain that fell on Easter Sunday at Bristol didn’t push the race to Monday. The postponement at Dover raises the conundrum that NASCAR has created with its late Sunday afternoon start times to maximize television viewership.
The push to start Sunday races after 3 p.m. makes sense to help NASCAR score as many viewers as possible. But it also means that tracks without lights like Dover can ill-afford to have rain or anything else delay the race. While lights aren’t a nominal expense, it sure would make a lot of sense for all non-West Coast tracks to be equipped with them if races are going to continue to start after 3 p.m. ET.
