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.

"It's a pain. Obviously we practiced [Friday], but I think if anybody looked at the weather they realized that the rain was coming," Knaus said. "So just about everybody in the garage dealt with it. We were in race trim [Friday] for about an hour before we switched over the qualifying trim.

"It's not fun. It's more of a hindrance than anything because you're just left standing around with only so much you can do. But I think everybody will be well prepared."

The weather Sunday is supposed to be agreeable to run the race as scheduled. The forecast called for sun and a temperature of 63 degrees by 2 p.m. when the race is supposed to begin.

Edwards is left to simply do the best that he can under difficult circumstances that didn't get any easier as a result of Saturday's rain-soaked events.

"Tensions are high," Edwards admitted. "This doesn't help us at all, but it was a real surprise to me. I venture to say I won't be the last person this weekend to wheel-hop and have trouble. I was just the first one. It's too bad, but tensions are high in the garage.

"This isn't the best thing for us, but I guarantee [from now on] we'll have better backup cars ready. We'll be more prepared because this is definitely an eye-opener."

One consolation for Edwards was the knowledge that struggling in the first race of the Chase, if he does so, won't meant the end of his chances to contend for the championship.

"I know the statistics. Jimmie Johnson finished 39th in this race last year [before going on to capture the Cup]," Edwards said. "It's really important, I think mentally, to get off to a good start here.

"No matter what happens this weekend, at Homestead [in the season finale] I don't think this one will be forgotten. I feel like our backup car is good enough to go out and hopefully win the race, that it's as good as our first car was."

That's what he had hoped to find out Saturday, but couldn't.