Rain cancels qualifying and threatens Sat. practices

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Sprint Cup qualifying for Sunday's Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway was rained out creating good news for a handful a drivers but bad news for others.

"For me a rain delay is trying to get [NASCAR] to call it as soon as possible so I can go home especially when we are this close to the house," said Clint Bowyer, who will start the race in the third position. "I'm an hour away so I can go eat dinner at home [in North Carolina]."

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Bowyer said he actually was looking forward to qualifying the car as he and the No. 33 crew had hit on some strategies while testing recently at Rockingham Speedway.

"The car was fast [Friday], but the rain came," Bowyer said. "We made some race runs and made some headway [during practice] and I think I have as good a car as I've ever had here."

Still, one issue remains. Drivers looking for additional track time on Saturday to perfect their race-day setups may be out of luck.

Weather forecasters are calling for an 80 percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms on Saturday that could wash out both practice sessions.

Jeff Gordon, though he sits on the pole Sunday per NASCAR's rule that in case of a rainout the lineup is set by owners' points, admits he is going to be nervous if he doesn't make some additional laps on Saturday before the race.

The weather had drivers on Friday debating on how to spend their track time. Teams were unsure whether or not to focus on qualifying setups or race-day setups in fear qualifying would be rained out.

Carl Edwards said he spent most of the practice session working on race trim.

"I haven't really seen what's supposed to happen [Saturday], but they say it could rain all of practice out, so we wanted to make sure our race setup is good," Edwards said. "I'm glad we worked on it because it's not that great and we need all the time we can get."

For drivers not in the top 10 in the point standings, the rainout has a larger impact as starting position is crucial at Martinsville's short and physically demanding track.

Jeff Burton, who sits 13th in the point standings, watched the radar closely and is still banking on practice happening Saturday. He wanted to work on qualifying but if it was rained out the No. 31 crew didn't want to waste time in qualifying setup when they could've been in race-day setup.

Burton started practice in race trim which is good for the special break setups required in Martinsville, he said.

"There are a lot of things different from qualifying to racing and it takes a long time to switch it over," he said. "You've got to make that decision early and we have an hour before we have to make that decision. We feel like practice [Saturday] is in pretty reasonable shape. [Saturday] afternoon doesn't look great."

Saturday's first practice session begins at 10:30 a.m. ET and last for 45 minutes. The final practice is one hour in length and begins at 11:50 a.m.

Matt Kenseth said there's just not much you can do about weather.

"You know you pay attention to the weather somewhat, but there's really nothing you can do to change your plan. The only thing that would change it a little bit was if you had a pretty strong feeling it was going to rain [Saturday] and not [Friday], then maybe you'd work on race setup longer [Friday] instead of working on qualifying but, other than that, you're not really going to do anything about it on Friday and Saturday."

Kevin Harvick said he starts every race weekend in race trim regardless of the weather.

"I'm a guy who has to have a little bit of rhythm before I get into qualifying trim and we like to get a little bit of a start on our race trim stuff before it's time to go into qualifying trim. This place is a little bit different," he said. "I think everyone will go out in race trim because it's so easy to make so many laps so fast and there's not much of a difference between your qualifying and race setups."

As for the 11 go-or-go-home drivers: Scott Speed, Aric Almirola, Paul Menard, Dave Blaney, Scott Riggs, Joe Nemechek, Jeremy Mayfield and Todd Bodine made the field; Sterling Marlin, Tony Raines, Dennis Setzer and Derrike Cope did not qualify based on owners' points.

As for the race-day forecast: partly cloudy with only a 20 percent chance of precipitation.