Rain hits practice for Martinsville NASCAR Sprint Cup race

The two 90-minute sessions planned ahead of Sunday's seventh round of the Chase could not be run as intermittent rain made it impossible for Cup cars to get on the track. The Truck series ran a shortened practice ahead of a rescheduled first Cup session but rain returned and then intensified later on.

Saturday's schedule has therefore been rearranged with 90-minute session at 8.30am local time, with officials hoping to get qualifying in as scheduled around noon.

However forecasts show there could be more rain on the way, which may eventually mean the field for Sunday's race would be set by the owner points if there is no practice, nor qualifying. If any practice is completed, the grid would be set based on the results of that session.

"I'm hoping we get on track and get some laps, get a feel for it," said Jeff Gordon. "For us, we were pretty strong here the last time and there's a slight tyre change I believe so we would like to think we should be pretty good based on how we were the last time and we would just make all our adjustments and calls for the race based on what we know from the last time and a little bit of information on the tyre data."

Teams will be running a new Goodyear right-side tyre this weekend, different to the one used earlier this year when the series last raced at the half-mile track. A few drivers sampled the new spec during a test in August, including Chase contenders Brad Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr, along with Roush Fenway's David Ragan, Richard Childress Racing's Jeff Burton and JTG Daugherty's Bobby Labonte.