Weather forecast for Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway
It still remains to be seen if the green flag will wave on time for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Mother nature has impacted the weekend’s events, forcing the Xfinity Series race scheduled for Saturday to be moved to Monday. Additionally, Cup Series qualifying for the Coca-Cola 600 was postponed. Hours ahead of the 6 p.m. ET scheduled start time, the forecast remains much of the same: steady rain expected to dissipate in the later evening.
Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports added to the expected forecast for the evening in Charlotte.
“About six hours before green flag,” Pockrass tweeted. “Forecast hasn’t changed much except some are predicting less total rain and potential intermittent windows of dry. Still will need to get a break to get big enough window and conditions to dry track.”
In order for NASCAR to get the race in before postponing it to Monday, Pockrass predicts they would have to get the race underway by around 9 p.m. Depending on wind and humidity, the 1.5-mile oval could take anywhere from 90-150 minutes to dry. That means NASCAR will likely need rainfall to stop around 7 p.m.
William Byron on the pole for Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Whenever the Coca-Cola 600 commences, one thing is for certain: William Byron will be the pole-sitter. The starting lineup was automatically set as a result of the cancellation of qualifying, leading to Byron getting the nod.
“Byron won the Cup Series’ most recent points race at Darlington Raceway and leads the series with three victories in 2023,” NASCAR said in a press release. “The performance metric based on Darlington sets the starting lineup for the longest race of the schedule, factoring 15% of fastest lap time position, 25% of the driver’s final race finish position, 25% of the owner’s final race finish position and 35% of the owner points position.”
Byron is the only three-time winner in the Cup Series this season and sits fifth in the points standings.
“We will take it any way we can get it,” Byron said, via ESPN.