Coke Zero 400 washed out
NASCAR officials made the decision shortly before 9 p.m. Saturday.
"We had a tough day with rain most of the day and from a radar perspective, it was popping up around us. We (didn't think) it was going to get this bad, this long," said Joie Chitwood III, president of Daytona International Speedway. "We worked with NASCAR as much as we could in terms of the timing. You reach a point right now where as it continues to rain, if we use an hour and 45 minutes to dry this track, which is a really short amount of time using Air Titan and the jets, typically we'd be well over two hours to dry the track. You start thinking about an 11 p.m. start which means you finish the event anywhere from 2 a.m. to a little bit later. You think about public safety, getting people home, all those things.
"With the rain still around us and coming down, we would not be able to dry the track for a reasonable start time tonight."
Both series were able to complete one of the three scheduled rounds of qualifying, allowing officials to set the starting lineups based off those results.
The start of Friday night's Subway Firecracker 250 Nationwide Series event was delayed by rain, but completed in its entirety with Kasey Kahne earning the win.
Front Row Motorsports driver David Gilliland will start on the Coors Light Pole in Sunday's Sprint Cup race while Reed Sorenson (Tommy Baldwin Racing) will start second. Gilliland's pole-winning run on Friday was his first since the 2007 season and the third of his career.
Series points leader Jeff Gordon (Hendrick Motorsports) will roll off the grid ninth while defending race winner and series champion Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick) will start fifth.