FONTANA, CA – Steady rain turned to snow before turning back to rain again, forcing NASCAR to cancel all practice and qualifying for Saturday’s Xfinity and Sunday’s Cup races at Fontana’s Auto Club Speedway.
The rain also postponed the start of Saturday’s Production Alliance Group 300 Xfinity race over the Speedway’s 2-mile D-shaped oval.
About an hour after the scheduled 2 p.m. Pacific start time, the skies cleared just enough for the Xfinity cars to roll out onto the track but after taking a couple slow laps behind the pace car, rain returned, forcing the 38 Xfinity racers back to pit road, two-by-two, like an automotive Noah’s Ark.
Another hour went by before NASCAR finally gave in to the inevitable, postponing the race until Sunday afternoon, immediately after the scheduled Pala Casino 400 Cup race (12:20 p.m. Pacific).
This will be the 33rd and final Cup race at Auto Club Speedway before the track is torn up, with NASCAR’s stated intention to turn the venue into a short track, although final details of that reconfiguration have yet to be made public.
The starting lineups for both races was determined by a metric system based on factors including points earned so far this season, based on results from last week’s season openers in Daytona/
That puts Auston Hill on the pole for the Xfinity race, followed by John Hunter Nemechek, Justin Allgaier, Parker Retzlaff, Chandler Smith Riley Herbst, Jeb Burton, Cole Custer Josh Williams and Brandon Jones.
Christopher Bell sits on the pole for the Cup race.
Rounding out the top 10 will be Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, AJ Allmendinger, Daniel Suarez, Ross Chastain, Ryan Blaney and, in his final start at his home track, Bakersfield’s Kevin Harvick.
Sportstalk805 will have complete coverage of both NASCAR races on Sunday.
