NASCAR cancels Friday racing events at Darlington due to hurricane

In advance of approaching Hurricane Hermine, NASCAR has canceled Friday’s practice sessions at Darlington Raceway.

The weather forecast for Sunday night’s Sprint Cup Series Southern 500 looks good, but the track of the storm, which is making landfall on the northern side of Florida’s gulf coast is headed straight through South Carolina on Friday. With the forecast so dire and so much rain expected, NASCAR went ahead and called off Friday’s events before potentially wasting an entire day waiting out the rain.

Qualifying for the Southern 500 as well as the Xfinity race are scheduled for Saturday. The rain is expected to move out of the area Friday night into Saturday morning, so the majority of the race weekend should not be affected. Hermine was upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane Thursday afternoon.

NASCAR will release an updated schedule of practices and qualifying for both the Sprint Cup Series and Xfinity Series at a later time.

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

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