Rain postpones Pepsi 400 qualifying

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- An abrupt thunderstorm Thursday afternoon interrupted NASCAR Winston Cup practice for the Pepsi 400 at 3:40 p.m. ET -- then caused Bud Pole Qualifying to be postponed until Friday morning.

Winston Cup cars practiced for about 40 minutes before rain began falling in Turn 1 of the 2.5-mile tri-oval.

About four hours later, the decision was made to postpone qualifying to set the 43-car Winston Cup field until 10 a.m. Friday.

Dale Jarrett, who won the 1999 Pepsi 400 and swept the Daytona Bud Poles in 2000, was fastest in the one-hour Winston Cup practice that was run Thursday evening instead of qualifying.

Michael Waltrip waited out Thursday's rain delay. Credit: Autostock

His No. 88 UPS Ford was clocked in 48.598 seconds, an average speed of 185.193 mph. Afterward, Jarrett said he probably got help on the lap, but was more concerned with extending the schedule at the price of his crewmen's time.

"The lap was deceiving," Jarrett said. "I had lots of help from a car I was catching -- probably two-and-a-half to three tenths (of a second). That still puts us in the ballpark. Our engine guys have put in countless hours and Todd (Parrott, crew chief) has worked hard on the body and it's really paid off.

"It's unfortunate with the rain (but) what's more unfortunate is our guys have been here all day and half the night -- then they have to come back at 7 o'clock in the morning and now all night tomorrow night. It's bad for the fans, too -- but I'm most concerned about my guys."

The same cars that were fast in the 40-minute session continued the trend to make them pole favorites in the morning.

Michael Waltrip was second best in the No. 15 NAPA Chevrolet at 184.305 mph, followed by 2002 Daytona 500 pole winner Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet (184.256 mph), Jeff Gordon's No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet and Jarrett's teammate Ricky Rudd's No. 28 Havoline Ford (184.045).

Defending race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. was sixth fastest in the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet, at 183.647 mph.

By 5:45 p.m., the sun was trying to break through a heavy overcast, the persistent rain had moved out to the east and NASCAR and speedway officials were able to deploy a fleet of jet blowers in an attempt to continue the scheduled activities.

The muggy conditions kept the track too damp for it to be dried in time to enable all practice and qualifying to be completed Thursday evening.

Before the threat of rain all around the speedway caused practice to be red flagged -- with rain falling on Turn 1 -- Waltrip was fastest of the 41 cars that got on track.

Ultimately, the 40-minute session was designated "practice 1" with the continuation becoming practice 2. Waltrip's best lap of seven he ran was 48.876 seconds, an average speed of 184.139 mph.

Jarrett was second quickest (183.925 mph), followed by Geoffrey Bodine in the No. 09 Miccosukee Resort Ford (183.696), Gordon (183.655) and Johnson (183.311).

Johnson's pole winning speed in February was 185.831 mph, 48.431 seconds.

Sterling Marlin, the defending event Bud Pole winner, made eight laps and was 16th on the chart, with a lap in 182.282 mph. His pole speed a year ago was 183.778 mph.

If practice had not been able to be continued, as many as seven cars would not have been able to make qualifying runs Thursday night.

Daytona 500 champion Ward Burton, Kenny Wallace, Ed Berrier and Hut Stricklin did not even get on the race track. Burton said his team had a problem getting his car through inspection, keeping it off the track.

The cars of Rudd, Kevin Harvick and Casey Atwood all got on track, but did not get up to speed. Wallace's participation in the race would have been in jeopardy, as his Innovative Motorsports Team had not run in a Winston Cup race yet this season.