HAMPTON, Ga. — Rain forced postponement of the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 Winston Cup race Sunday after just 39 of the scheduled 325 laps at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Racing will resume at 11 a.m. today.
NASCAR officials, looking ahead to next week's race at Phoenix, tried to wait for the bad weather to pass, but finally were forced to call off the vigil when heavy rain began falling again at 5:55 p.m., nearly five hours after the racing was halted.
Kevin Harvick, who started 10th in the 43-car field, was leading six-time Atlanta winner Bobby Labonte and five-time winner Bill Elliott when the rain first began falling on lap 33.
A red flag halted the action after six laps under caution.
"My car is obviously real good right now, so I wish we could get it restarted," Harvick said. "With all this rain, the track is going to be pretty different when we do get going again, so everything could change."
Ryan Newman, who started from the pole in quest of his ninth victory of the season, led the first 12 laps before being passed by Harvick. Dale Earnhardt Jr. shot past to take second on lap 14 and Newman faded to ninth before the race was stopped.
"When the tires started to go away a little bit, our car wasn't very good," Newman said. "We're going to certainly have to make some adjustments."
The rest of the top 10 included Earnhardt, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Spencer, Newman and Jeremy Mayfield.
Series leader Matt Kenseth, who came into the race with a 240-point lead over Harvick with just three races remaining, started 37th and was running 21st when the rain came.
Several drivers had a tough time in the early going Sunday.
Dale Jarrett was bumped by Tony Raines and wound up with a flat left rear tire that tore apart and damaged the bodywork on his Ford before the former Winston Cup champion could get to the pits.
Brian Vickers, making only his second Cup start, started fourth but had an engine problem and was behind the wall for repairs and running last when the race was stopped. The 20-year-old Vickers was making his first start in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 25 Chevrolet that he will drive in 2004.
GOLD COAST INDY: Paul Tracy won the CART drivers' championship Sunday when closest rival Bruno Junqueira crashed with 10 laps left in the Gold Coast Indy.
American rookie Ryan Hunter-Reay was the winner in a race cut short by thunderstorms and hail the size of marbles. Hunter-Reay beat another rookie, Darren Manning of England, by 1.546 seconds for his first CART victory.
Tracy finished 13th, two laps behind the winner. But his 28-point lead over Junqueira entering the race meant Junqueira had to pick up at least seven points to send the title chase to the final event at Fontana, Calif., on Nov. 2.
Tracy had tears in his eyes when handed the Vanderbilt Cup for winning the title.
"I went through every range of emotion you could in two hours," he said. "To finally win it is something. I've won lots of races and led plenty of laps, but to get to this level is what it's all about."
There were crashes on the first turn and a 75-minute delay because of hail. The race was shortened to 47 laps from 65 because of the weather.
"I can't believe it, it was just such a battle," said Hunter-Reay as he held the American flag at the trophy presentations.
Junqueira finished 15th and was leading before the storm. Cars were forced off the track after 14 laps. The race restarted after hail was plucked from the floor of some cockpits, drivers changed wet socks and shoes and water was squeezed off the street course.
"Before the rain it looked as if we could win," Junqueira said.
Jimmy Vasser, Hunter-Reay's teammate and the 1996 winner of the Australian race, was third. He was followed by Michel Jourdain Jr., who led briefly with 20 laps to go, and Patrick Carpentier of Canada.
This was the 13th straight year a different driver has won this race. It was also the first time rookies finished 1-2 in a CART race since Teo Fabi and Al Unser Jr. at Pocono in 1983.
Last year, eight cars were involved in a crash in heavy rain on the first turn. In previous years, rain has forced the race to finish in near-darkness on the 2.5-mile temporary circuit.