NASCAR’s Super Bowl Weekend Under Huge Trouble as Dark Clouds Take Center Stage

For the second weekend in a row, the NASCAR race weekend will be interrupted by rain. This time around, the venue is the Daytona International Speedway, and the affected series is the Xfinity Series. As it happens, the qualifying session has not even kicked off, and yet, the weekend already looks doomed.

The entire Daytona weekend up until now has been a bit of a nightmare. The Truck race set an unwanted record for the most cautions in a single race, with 12. Later on, the ARCA Series race was just as chaotic, filled with a number of big wrecks and cautions. Let’s not forget the pre-season race was rescheduled due to bad weather, following which, the ARCA season opener was also moved up due to concerns surrounding the weather. Now, the Xfinity Series qualifying appears to be in doubt, considering that the rain is falling heavily.

How has the Xfinity Series played out so far at Daytona?

Following the practice session on Friday, Jeb Burton and Jordan Anderson Racing were one of the favorites. Last year, he triumphed at the Talladega Superspeedway, and finished 12th in the championship. Now, it appears that he has carried forward that form at the Daytona International Speedway. The #27 Chevrolet driver topped the sole practice session for the Xfinity Series on Friday.

Burton set a lap time of 48.338 seconds and clocked a speed of 186.189mph. The Jordan Anderson Racing driver benefitted from a multi-car draft to set the fastest time. Behind him on the track were JR Motorsports driver, Sammy Smith, and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Sheldon Creed. Both Smith and Creed are making their debuts with their respective teams, and could be legitimate threats to Jeb Burton.

Smith was just three one-thousandths of a second away from the top spot. Meanwhile, Creed was ahead of Cole Custer, and his own teammate Ryan Truex. Jeremy Clements, Sage Karam, Jordan Anderson, Daniel Dye and Anthony Alfredo completed the Top 10. Now the drivers will be hoping that it does get underway on Saturday. Stanton Barrett, Natalie Decker, Caesar Bacarella, Daniel Dye, David Starr, and Joey Gase are all hoping to qualify at Daytona.

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However, if the qualifying is called off entirely, all six of them would be sent home early.

Will the Xfinity session be rescheduled?

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Last time out at the LA Coliseum, the NASCAR Cup race was pushed up by 24 hours. Later, the ARCA season opener was also moved up. With similar concerns surrounding the Daytona 500, there is heavy speculation about the possibility of another instance of rescheduling. But it would be a bit of a stretch to hope that NASCAR reschedules the qualifying session. Maybe in the worst-case scenario, they will set the grid in accordance to how the practice session played out.

However, that would spell disaster for the likes of Barrett, Decker, Bacarella, Dye, Starr and Gase. So it would be in their best interest to somehow squeeze in a qualifying session. Who knows, maybe the rainfall won’t last for too long and the track will dry up quickly. Until there is an official report, one can only hope the weather doesn’t spoil the remainder of the weekend.

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