Rain is a NASCAR regular these days; Concord latest

Full-field qualifying for the Coca-Cola 600 was delayed until today.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
CONCORD, N.C. -- NASCAR's drought-relief tour showed up Thursday morning and stopped everything at Lowe's Motor Speedway. It was the eighth time in 14 weekends this season that rain has delayed, shortened or stopped on-track activities at a NASCAR track.
Earlier this year, rain interfered with activities at Daytona Beach, Rockingham, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Darlington and Richmond. Today's Charlotte-area forecast isn't good, but the long-range outlook for Saturday and Sunday is more promising.
Thursday's rainout likely won't change anyone's strategy. But things might get dicey if teams couldn't get on the track today.
"The delay doesn't matter a whole lot," said Pontiac driver Johnny Benson. "Losing Thursday put us on our normal weekend schedule of qualifying on Friday, practicing on Saturday and racing on Sunday. I'm sorry for the fans who were coming out, but even NASCAR has trouble getting Mother Nature to cooperate.
Short to long
"But if we lose [today], crew chiefs might start getting a little nervous. They know the track pretty well, but last weekend's practice and The Winston were about making your car good on short runs. In a 600-mile race, like Sunday night's, you'd better be good on long runs. If your car isn't good on long runs it's going to seem like 1,000 miles not 600."
Thursday night's ARCA ReMax 100-miler was rained out, as well as full-field qualifying for the Coca-Cola 600 Winston Cup race. The rain was so persistent -- upwards of 5 inches during the daylight hours -- that tonight's scheduled World of Outlaws race at the dirt track across from LMS was canceled at mid-afternoon Thursday.
In case of rain today, officials likely will start the 600 by points and let teams spend Saturday practicing. It's unsure how they might arrange for adequate practice and then set the grid for Saturday's Busch Series 300.