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April 12, 2019

Rain halts part of Friday’s on-track activity at Richmond


Rain showers hit the Richmond area on Friday afternoon, hitting the pause button on NASCAR’s on-track activity at Richmond Raceway and forcing the sanctioning body to cancel final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice. NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying also fell victim to the wet weather and the lineup for Friday’s race will be set in accordance to the NASCAR Rule Book.

The schedule got back on track with Cup qualifying at 5:45 p.m. ET. The Xfinity Series ToyotaCare 250 also got underway at 7 p.m. ET; the second race of the four-race Dash 4 Cash in the Xfinity ranks.

Cup Series teams were scheduled to practice on the 0.75-mile short track from 1:05-1:55 p.m. ET. Rain started falling around 12:15 and NASCAR officials put everything on hold and announced it would be scrapping practice shortly before 1 p.m.

MORE: Weather updates from Richmond | Full Richmond schedule

Scattered thunderstorms and rain are in the forecast for the rest of the evening.

Race officials have a full fleet of track-drying equipment on hand. Stationed at Richmond are eight Air Titan dryers, four conventional jet dryers, one track blower, one Elgin sweeper and one track vacuum.

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