Rain Halts NASCAR Cup Playoff Race at Texas, Forces Postponement Until Monday

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service

Misting rain interrupted Sunday’s Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway and ultimately forced postponement of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race until 10 a.m. ET Monday (NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

NASCAR called a caution on Lap 42 because of wet track conditions. In the second race of the Round of 8, the Cup cars ran 10 laps under caution before the sanctioning body brought the field to pit road and red-flagged the event.

Roughly half the field opted to pit under the caution, leaving Clint Bowyer and seven-time Texas winner Jimmie Johnson in the top two positions awaiting the resumption.

The two drivers who have dominated the series this season both had issues in the early going. Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 Ford was a victim of the slick track on Lap 29, scraping the wall in the tri-oval when his car refused to turn.

Harvick made an unscheduled pit stop on Lap 32 and was 36th, one lap down, when the race was halted.

Denny Hamlin slipped up the track on a Lap 28 restart and fell back to 28th in the running order, but the driver of the No. 11 Toyota avoided contact with the wall and worked his way back to 15th by Lap 42.