Why Was NASCAR Truck Series Bristol Qualifying Canceled Today? When is the Race?

NASCAR halted Truck Series qualifying at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee, after a lengthy lightning hold on Thursday afternoon, and the field for tonight’s UNOH 250 will now be set by the rule book instead of the clock.

Nine trucks were still lined up to qualify when the red flag flew, leaving Chase points leader Layne Riggs to open the Truck Series’ new seven-race playoff format from a Bristol pole he never got to officially earn.

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Qualifying began at 4:05 p.m. ET on FS2, and Bristol’s own account warned fans of approaching storms and told them to seek shelter, according to Bristol track officials on social media. By roughly 4:40 p.m. ET, trackside reporters covering the session had Jake Garcia atop an incomplete leaderboard after 28 trucks had run, while Tanner Gray and Tristan McKee were scratched by mechanical trouble. NASCAR insider Bob Pockrass later confirmed the session would not resume, with Thursday’s grid instead following NASCAR’s qualifying metric, a formula built around car owner points.

That formula favors Riggs, who topped Thursday’s practice session at 124.987 mph ahead of Ty Majeski, Jake Garcia, Gio Ruggiero and Connor Mosack, according to Jayski’s full race weekend coverage. Pockrass picked Riggs to win outright, listing Majeski, Honeycutt, Smith and Hemric to round out his top five, according to his earlier top-five race prediction.

Weather Outlook Turns Uncertain For Saturday’s Cup Race

Bristol’s Cup Series weekend begins Friday with practice and qualifying before the Bass Pro Shops Night Race runs Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on USA Network. Saturday’s daytime forecast calls for mid-80-degree heat and a 40 to 50 percent chance of afternoon storms, according to the National Weather Service’s Bristol forecast.

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Conditions should improve by the green flag, with lows in the mid-60s and an evening storm chance closer to 20 to 30 percent, according to a detailed breakdown of Saturday’s outlook. NASCAR has already updated its wet-weather tire policy for the weekend, letting teams switch to wet tires if rain falls after a race starts, according to a Motorsport.com report.

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Layne Riggs Leads Truck Series Chase Field Into Bristol

The UNOH 250 opens the first Truck Series Chase, a seven-race playoff format that skips elimination rounds and simply tallies points down the stretch, according to NASCAR’s official Chase entry announcement.

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Riggs enters at 2,100 points, 25 ahead of Honeycutt and 35 up on Smith, with Eckes, Ruggiero, Majeski, Enfinger, Hemric, Rhodes and Ankrum rounding out the 10-driver field, according to Frontstretch’s breakdown of the Chase standings. Bristol is one of two short tracks left before the season closes at Homestead on Nov. 6, with no reset round to erase a bad night.

ThorSport, which fields Majeski and Rhodes, has not won since Phoenix in November 2024, but considers Bristol a track where that drought should end, according to NASCAR’s ThorSport Chase preview. Bristol Motor Speedway’s own preview framed Riggs and Front Row Motorsports teammate Chandler Smith as the tandem to beat entering an 8 p.m. ET green flag on FS1, according to the speedway’s official release.

Thursday’s lightning hold delayed the start of the Truck Series’ new Chase, but it did not change the outlook. Riggs leads, the format has no reset round, and Bristol’s short track still has a habit of rearranging fields late.

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