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The start of the second race in the Round of 8 of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup was delayed for nearly six hours following an early bout of rain at Texas Motor Speedway and surrounding areas.
The AAA Texas 500‘s green flag was scheduled for 2:04:30 p.m. ET (NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), and the skies opened just after the national anthem. The green flag fell just before 8 p.m. ET after a lengthy track-drying process.
Once the track dried, Richard Childress Racing‘s Austin Dillon led the field to green after scoring his third career Sprint Cup Series pole during Friday’s Coors Light Pole Qualifying.
Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series contender Joey Logano lined up alongside Dillon in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford.
Going into today’s 500-miler, Jimmie Johnson — the defending race winner — is the only Chaser with a secured spot in the Championship 4. The Joe Gibbs Racing trio of Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch currently sit above the cutoff line while Logano, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards are below it. Next Sunday’s race at Phoenix International Raceway marks the cutoff in the Round of 8 in which four drivers will be eliminated from the Chase ahead of the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 20.
Wet weather impacted the track schedule earlier in the week when two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series practices were washed out on Thursday due to rain.