NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 race postponed to Monday as rain washes out Charlotte

The Coca-Cola 600 has been officially postponed.

The biggest NASCAR Cup Series race run at Charlotte Motor Speedway has been postponed to Monday at 3 p.m. after rain washed out all on-track activities on Sunday. The last time North Carolina’s biggest NASCAR race ran on a Monday was in 2009.

The Coca-Cola 600 will still be on FOX.

Gates open at 9 a.m. Monday to fans. The NASCAR Xfinity Series race, which was postponed after rain Saturday, will run at 11 a.m. Fans can watch it on FS1.

In a Twitter video at 9:21 p.m. Sunday, Charlotte Motor Speedway general manager Greg Walker said that any fan who has a ticket to either race is allowed entry for both the Xfinity race and the Cup race on Monday. (This a change from the policy the racetrack released at 6:30 p.m.; now there are no requirements for fans to exit the grandstands following the Xfinity race.)

Fans with unscanned tickets to either the Xfinity race or the Cup race may exchange them ticket-for-ticket for equal or lesser value toward any other Speedway Motorsports NASCAR or NTT IndyCar race during the next calendar year, per a release.

Additional details can be found at www.CharlotteMotorSpeedway.com.

Live updates from Charlotte Motor Speedway

6:30 p.m.: Race is called. See you tomorrow!

6:08 p.m.: Air Titans descended on the track around 5:45 p.m. to dry the speedway pavement, and they’ve stayed out there as the rain has slackened. Fans cheered when they settled onto the track. Still a long ways to go until we go racing tonight. A reminder: Engines were supposed to be fired about eight minutes ago.

4:43 p.m.: A message from Marcus Smith, CEO of Speedway Motorsports, which owns Charlotte Motor Speedway: “Weather meeting update from (Charlotte Motor Speedway). Here’s what I heard. Spotty showers from now to 6 p.m. Then things lift, and we start drying the track. Projecting 8-8:30 p.m. start time. No guarantees, but I hope they are right! We shall see.”

Related: The average time of NASCAR’s longest race is 4:33:56, per the sanctioning body. Again, only half of the race has to be completed for it to be official. The 2022 Coke 600 was the longest in modern history, at five hours and 13 minutes.

4:27 p.m.: Realistically, there looks to be no way this race will begin at its scheduled start time at 6 p.m. It’s still raining, and it generally takes 2-3 hours to dry the track — and that’s after it stops raining, which so far it hasn’t.

The track and NASCAR have made no announcement about changing the start time, but unofficially, it appears we will be looking at a time much later than 6 p.m. for a start time — if the race gets run at all on Sunday. If it doesn’t, a mid-afternoon start time Monday seems possible, but again, there’s nothing official.

4:17 p.m.: The Indy 500 — which people around this track like to consider the “warm-up act” to the Coke 600 — has concluded in Indianapolis. It had been playing on the Charlotte Motor Speedway’s big screen and in various places around the track. Josef Newgarden was the Indy 500 winner. It remains to be seen if that was the last big race to actually be run on this Sunday. A steady rain continues.

The Indy 500 did contain one frightening moment, when a tire got loose from its wheel tether and sailed completely off the track. Fortunately, it hit a parked car instead of flying into the stands. No one was injured.

4:06 p.m.: Brad Keselowski and RFK Racing announced a partnership with BlueForge Alliance, the non-profit integrator for the U.S. Navy’s Submarine Industrial Base Program on Sunday. BuildSubmarines.com will be featured as a primary partner for 10 races across RFK’s two Cup cars this year and in 18 races next season.

4 p.m.: On a sadder note: the Doobie Brothers pre-race concert has been canceled due to safety concerns related to the weather. Fans who purchased a Track Pass upgrade will receive credit toward a future Track Pass, racetrack PR said in a statement. Also from Charlotte Motor Speedway staff: “We are prepared to launch a full-scale track-drying effort to get the Coca-Cola 600 started. Our goal is to do everything possible to race tonight!”

3:54 p.m.: When will a decision be made about the race’s start time? Hard to say.

NASCAR generally doesn’t make any calls for postponements until well after the race’s original start time if there’s a chance that a window of dry weather could crop up. Case in point: It took the sanctioning body until 3:47 p.m. yesterday — several hours after the scheduled 12 p.m. start time — to officially postpone the Xfinity Series race to Monday at 12 noon. (That said, the race at Dover was postponed at 11 a.m., a few hours before the Cup race.) It’s worth noting that rescheduling this big race isn’t the easiest endeavor due to TV obligations, particularly with the aforementioned Xfinity Series race to consider, too. A Monday doubleheader is certainly possible. It’s also worth noting that only half of a race needs to be completed to be “official.”

3:34 p.m.: Rain began drizzling on Charlotte Motor Speedway’s pavement just after 10 a.m. Saturday, and it hasn’t stopped since. It’s only escalated, in fact. Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race is slated to begin just after 6 p.m., but an on-time start would require a few hours of Air Titan track-drying work as well as several hours of no precipitation — something Sunday’s forecast doesn’t seem to entertain. Local forecasts predict that rain will continue to fall until about 9 p.m. (Then, once and if it clears up, the 600-mile race will need to happen.) A long day could be ahead of us!

Here’s an insightful look at the radar from WCNC meteorologist Brad Panovich:

How to watch NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600

• Race: Coca-Cola 600

• Place: Charlotte Motor Speedway

• Date: Monday, May 29

• Time: 3 p.m. ET

• Purse: $9,421,275

• TV: FOX

• Radio: PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

• Distance: 600 miles (400 laps)

• Stages: Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 100), Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 200), Stage 3 (Ends on Lap 300), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 400)