DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway was postponed Saturday night because of persistent poor weather.
The 400-mile event was rescheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday, which helps NBC avoid a head-to-head conflict with the Women's World Cup final in which the United States will take on the Netherlands in Lyon, France. Fox is showing the soccer showdown, which starts at 11 a.m. EDT.
NASCAR has run at Daytona on or close to the Fourth of July since 1959 but is abandoning that tradition in a scheduling shake-up that starts next season. Daytona will instead host the regular-season finale in August, while the holiday weekend race will move to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Weather in part made Daytona amenable to surrendering the holiday weekend - every day since the track opened Thursday has been disrupted by either lightning or rain. Friday's qualifying for Saturday night's race was canceled because lightning in the area prevented NASCAR from being able to inspect the cars.
The field was set by points, with Team Penske's Joey Logano scheduled to start on the front row alongside Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch.
Rain started two hours before the scheduled green flag and continued on and off into the evening, spoiling the pre-race pomp and circumstances. Because drying the 2.5-mile asphalt tri-oval takes about two hours, NASCAR officials eventually decided it would be better to race Sunday afternoon than into the wee hours of Saturday night.