Weather forces late start at Texas Motor Speedway

Weather issues caused almost a two-hour delay for the Duck Commander 500 on Saturday evening at Texas Motor Speedway.

The track avoided major showers most of the day, but on-and-off rain forced the delay. The race had been scheduled to start at 6:46 p.m., but the green flag didn’t drop until about 8:35 p.m.

That put the race in line to end by about midnight. The fastest race in track history was 3 hours, 7 minutes in the spring of 2012 when Greg Biffle won. The longest race happened to be the inaugural race in 1997, taking a little more than four hours to complete as Jeff Burton took the checkered flag.

TMS last experienced weather issues in the spring 2014 race, when it had to move to a Monday start. Track and NASCAR officials, though, were confident about their ability to get the race in Saturday.

Neither discussed the possibility of pushing the race back a day.

Five Air Titan jet dryers circled the 1.5-mile track to get it into race conditions much of the afternoon, dragging blowers and heaters. The crowd applauded when the dryers exited, the covers came off the cars and the engines fired up.

It marked the second delayed start of the season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Last month at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the race had to be delayed because of high winds and rain.

Drivers waited out the delay in a variety of ways. Joey Logano watched a Supercross race, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. made a few posts on Twitter.

Earnhardt eventually ended a back-and-forth with fans by writing at about 8 p.m.: “I’m getting called to the car. Shouldn’t be long now. Enjoy the race!”

The first four laps were run under green/yellow before green-flag racing began on Lap 6. Pole sitter Carl Edwards led every lap through a competition caution on Lap 30.

Jimmie Johnson bumped into Kyle Busch during an early pit stop early, and Martin Truex Jr. passed Edwards on the backstretch to take the lead on Lap 59.

Rookie Chase Elliott, meanwhile, had to start in the rear of the field for a transmission change before the race. He had worked his way back up to the top-15 by Lap 90.

Those were among the early race highlights on a night that got off to a later than expected start.

But just seeing the 334-lap race get under way pleased the fans.

This story was originally published April 9, 2016 at 10:53 PM with the headline "Weather forces late start at Texas Motor Speedway."