Bristol Cup race postponed to Monday

There will be no Cup Series race at Bristol on Sunday.

Because of constant rain throughout Sunday morning and a forecast for more rain the rest of the day, NASCAR has pushed Sunday’s race to Monday. The race will begin at 1 p.m. ET and air on Fox.

Rain wiped out qualifying on Friday, though NASCAR was able to get in a Cup Series practice session on Friday and two practices on Saturday. The starting lineup is set by owner points because there was no qualifying and that means Kyle Larson starts first and Chase Elliott will start second.

The Xfinity Series race was able to be run as scheduled Saturday afternoon, though it was interrupted by a brief rain delay. That rain delay led to a punch from Ross Chastain on Jeremy Clements.

After both drivers climbed from their cars as rain halted the race, Clements approached Chastain from behind. He put his hand on Chastain’s shoulder and Chastain apparently turned and socked Clements in the face.

Clements had to go to the infield care center during the delay for a swollen left eye.

“I had no intention of hitting him,” Clements told ESPN. “He turned around and socked me. It’s kind of uncalled for, for sure. I had no intention of fighting the guy — I just wanted to know why he has to race like that every single week.”

The incident wasn’t captured at all by Fox’s cameras during the rain delay. When Kyle Busch went after Joey Logano at Las Vegas, Fox was AWOL there too, only getting footage of the incident after Busch was piled by Logano’s crew members.

Chastain told ESPN that he whirled to punch Clements in a reaction to having a hand on his shoulder. He said it was the first time he’d punched someone and if he could do it over again he didn’t know what he would do.

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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