Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series’ Dixie Vodka 400 has been hampered by four delays for lightning in the early going at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The field was stopped around 7:30 p.m. ET with 33 of a scheduled 267 laps complete and Chase Elliott’s No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the lead. He led just four laps before the race was red-flagged.
Five laps were run before a stoppage of 2 hours, 8 minutes and 5 seconds. The race was initially delayed by rain and lightning in the area, but the race went green at 4:50 p.m. ET, nearly an hour after the originally scheduled green flag time.
A brief shower in Turns 3 and 4 put a hold on engines being fired after the command was given. Lightning in the area placed the event in a 30-minute hold right around 4 p.m. ET.
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Drivers were called back to their cars at roughly 6:10 p.m. ET, with hopes of resuming and completing the full distance, but about 10 minutes after that — with drivers buckled in and engines freshly fired — another strike of lightning forced another hold.
Teams completed 28 more laps before the next stoppage. Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate Tyler Reddick was second to Elliott in the running order. Joey Logano, who led a race-high 27 laps in the early going, was third.
The Dixie Vodka 400 is a 267-lap race with Stage 1 ending at Lap 80, Stage 2 concluding at Lap 160 and the Final Stage scheduled to end at Lap 267. The Cup Series race comes after the second of two Xfinity Series races in two days at the 1.5-mile track.
This race marks the first event with fans in the stands as 1,000 guests from local military bases were invited. This is the 12th Cup Series event of the season and the eighth since the season resumed after a stoppage due to the COVID-19 pandemic.