When it comes to rain this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, it’s not a matter of if it will rain but when. We already got a taste of what we could see today into Saturday night on Wednesday for the Camping World Truck series race that was moved to Thursday morning.
NASCAR Bristol Night Race 2014 Weekend weather forecast
The weather forecast for Saturday night’s Bristol Night race is very complicated. Almost Daytona in July complicated. It’s not a matter of if it will rain but when.
Northeastern Tennessee is located right on the edge of a large ridge of high pressure. Usually when we talk about a ridge of high pressure we are talking about nice weather for a race weekend, unfortunately Bristol is right on the outskirts of this upper level ridge and complexes of showers and storms that form in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley hug the edge of the ridge and could move right over Bristol Friday and Saturday. It all boils down to timing.
My odds of racing this weekend (for both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series races) is between 50 and 60 percent. The reason it is so low is right now it’s hard to accurately predict at exactly what time a large complex of showers or storms could move over the track. There is also the threat of scattered to isolated storms popping up with the heat of the day. The nice thing about Bristol being nestled in a valley is sometimes these pop-up storm cells die out or “go around” the mountains and miss the track. This is where I believe the idea of the “Vortex Theory” originated.
This is a very difficult forecast and it’s very hard to get a good lock on timing of any storms or large complexes of storms and rain. I think we can get these races in Friday and Saturday but it will take just one large complex of rain and storms like they had Wednesday to cause chaos for teams and fans this weekend at Bristol.
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Conditions in Bristol, Tenn.:
Click here for Current Weather Conditions – Look at Doppler Radar | Mobile Friendly Site | Mobile Radar
FRIDAY:
11:00 a.m EDT
Sprint Cup Series Practice – Clouds and sunshine, chance of shower/storm – temp: 79
1:30 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup Series Final Practice – Clouds and sunshine, chance of shower/storm – temp: 85
3:40 p.m EDT
Nationwide Series Qualifying – Clouds and sunshine, chance of shower/storm – temp: 88
5:40 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup Series Qualifying – Clouds and sunshine, chance of shower/storm – temp: 86
7:30 p.m EDT
Nationwide Race – Variably cloudy, chance off a shower or storm – temp: 82
SATURDAY:
6:30 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup Pre-race – Clouds and sunshine, chance of shower/storm – temp: 84
7:30 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup Race – Clouds and sunshine, chance of shower/storm – temp: 82
8:30 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup Race – Variably cloudy, chance off a shower or storm – temp: 80
9:30 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup Race – Variably cloudy, chance off a shower or storm – temp: 79
10:30 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup Race – Variably cloudy, chance off a shower or storm – temp: 76
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