Cup race runneth over

FONTANA, Calif. -- It's going to take an extra day for the NASCAR caravan to roll into Las Vegas this week.

All because the racing organization couldn't finish the Sprint Cup Auto Club 500 on Sunday at Auto Club Speedway.

The 250-lap race began as a rain-soaked afternoon event.

Then it turned into a Sunday night race under the lights.

Now, weather permitting, it is scheduled to resume this morning.

Instead of the "Sprint" Cup, the second event of the season in NASCAR's top series turned into a marathon and a battle against boredom for the drivers, crews and fans.

Three delays and drainage problems on the racing surface finally caused the remainder of the race to be postponed until 10 a.m. today. It will air locally on Fox (Channel 5).

The postponement came at 11 p.m., 10 hours after the scheduled 1 p.m. start.

The race will resume with only 87 laps complete and with Jimmie Johnson leading. Travis Kvapil was second and Kyle Busch third.

"We worked like crazy to get the track ready, but the humidity and dew point were so high we couldn't get it dry enough," NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said. "As hard as we tried, we couldn't get it done."

When the race was called off, the temperature was 49 degrees and the humidity 93 percent.

The Nationwide Series race -- that's the former Busch Series -- also was moved to today. It is scheduled to begin about an hour after the Cup race is complete and will be shown on ESPN2 (Cable 31).

The Nationwide race was rained out Saturday and had been rescheduled to follow the Cup race Sunday, but that plan was thrown out once it became obvious the Cup race wouldn't finish early enough.

The delays were not expected to impact teams' preparation for this weekend's visit by both series to Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

About 45,000 fans weathered a 21/2-hour delay for the start of the race at around 3:30 p.m.

On the 21st lap, a caution flag came out after the No. 5 Chevrolet driven by Casey Mears slid into the guardwall after apparently losing traction in an area of the track where ground water had seeped to the surface from cracks in the pavement.

Mears' car slid down the track and clipped Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. Mears' car was then flipped onto its side by Sam Hornish Jr. On lap 22, a red flag stopped racing for track clean-up and repairs.

Earnhardt was upset with the track, not Mears.

"It's just a dirty old racetrack out there," Earnhardt said. "It's just frustrating, man. The track isn't ready today. We just rushed into this. It was a bad move."

Six laps before Mears' incident, Denny Hamlin said a slick spot caused his crash into the wall. He proved prophetic when he said, "It's seeping a lot of water. I hit a wet spot, and I'm not going to be the last one."

Under NASCAR's direction, speedway workers saw-cut about a dozen narrow channels into the asphalt between the third and fourth turns to aid drainage. The grooves ran about 10 feet up from the apron. Jet-engine-powered blowers removed much of the water pooling below the surface.

"Getting in and out in (turns) three and four, if you weren't quite low enough it was wet," said Mears, who was not injured in the crash.

"The track is still seeping a good bit of water. I don't know if that's why I got loose in (turn) one, but in three and four it was pretty wet."

The race needed to reach 125 laps to be deemed official, and it resumed after 1 hour, 7 minutes. But 20 laps later a light drizzle slowed it under caution for eight laps.

Rain produced the seventh caution on lap 82, and six laps later it was stopped and cars were sent to pit road at 6:10 p.m. They never got back on the track.

Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0247.