LOUDON, N.H. -- The rainstorm that washed away Saturday's final Nextel Cup practice for the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway was an inconvenience to be sure, but it shouldn't prove catastrophic for anyone.

At least that's what Carl Edwards and his No. 99 Ford team hopes. After crashing during practice Friday and being forced to pull out a backup car for Sunday's race, he had hoped to use the practice time Saturday to get acclimated to his new ride.

The wreck coupled with the foul weather wasn't the combination Edwards was looking for as he and 11 others look to kick off the Chase to the Nextel Cup with Sunday's event. Edwards is seeded fourth among the 12 drivers who qualified to make the Chase, which decides the season's champion over the final 10 races of the year.

Edwards lamented his poor luck, citing that he was making what his team had planned to be his final practice lap on Friday when he lost control of the car going into Turn 3.

"The car was really fast," Edwards said. "We were extremely fast and that actually was going to be my last lap. I had been locking up the front brakes into [Turn] 3 and that was really the only trouble with the brakes I had. I just drove into 3 and stepped on the brakes and wheel-hopped the rears.

"Once they started hopping, I tried and tired and tried to get them to quit and it just slid all the way up and hit the wall -- just hard enough to tear it up enough to go to the backup car. It's really frustrating for my guys, but they say the backup car is actually a newer car."

Edwards added then that the only thing that could "really hurt us" was for practice Saturday to get rained out. But at that point late Friday, he had to know it probably was coming as forecasts called for an 80 percent chance of rain through the morning.

And that's exactly what happened. The rain came early and was at times more or less a downpour until mid-morning, when it finally slowed to a drizzle. But by then the morning practiced was cancelled, and Cup Happy Hour already was in serious jeopardy. It was called for good at 11:37 a.m. ET.

Edwards wasn't the only racer who had hoped for more practice time, although he appeared to be the one Chaser who needed it the most. Others, such as top-seeded Jimmie Johnson and his crew chief, Chad Knaus, also had been looking forward to using the final practice to learn as much as they could before heading into Sunday's race. (Continued)