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HAMPTON, Ga. -- A crowd of more than 100,000 is expected to attend Sunday night's AdvoCare 500. But the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee may throw a major monkeywrench in those plans.
After two days of sunny and hot conditions at Atlanta Motor Speedway, race teams awoke to decidedly gloomier skies -- and a forecast that doesn't look promising. According to the National Weather Service hourly forecast, the potential chances of precipitation increase from 40 to 60 percent by 2 p.m. ET, then to 70 percent by evening.
That includes the potential for up to a half-inch of rain this evening, and with a 100 percent chance of precipitation beginning around midnight ET, additional rainfall amounts of up to 2 inches on Monday.
In an effort to beat the storm, NASCAR officials already have moved the start time up some 20 minutes to 7:30 p.m. ET, but that may not be enough to allow completion of the next-to-last race before the Chase field is set. A race is official at the halfway mark, in this case, 163 laps on Atlanta's 1.54-mile oval.
As of 10 a.m. ET Sunday, the outermost bands of the storm -- which is slowly tracking to the northeast -- were less than 10 miles from the track, with the heaviest showers over Montgomery, Ala., some 150 miles to the southwest.
After two days of sunny and hot conditions at Atlanta Motor Speedway, race teams awoke to decidedly gloomier skies -- and a forecast that doesn't look promising. According to the National Weather Service hourly forecast, the potential chances of precipitation increase from 40 to 60 percent by 2 p.m. ET, then to 70 percent by evening.
That includes the potential for up to a half-inch of rain this evening, and with a 100 percent chance of precipitation beginning around midnight ET, additional rainfall amounts of up to 2 inches on Monday.
In an effort to beat the storm, NASCAR officials already have moved the start time up some 20 minutes to 7:30 p.m. ET, but that may not be enough to allow completion of the next-to-last race before the Chase field is set. A race is official at the halfway mark, in this case, 163 laps on Atlanta's 1.54-mile oval.
As of 10 a.m. ET Sunday, the outermost bands of the storm -- which is slowly tracking to the northeast -- were less than 10 miles from the track, with the heaviest showers over Montgomery, Ala., some 150 miles to the southwest.
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