Mears’ inverted exit from the event precipitated the first red flag of the event as many drivers, most notably Hamlin, criticised the track surface for being too wet to race on. A 90-minute delay followed during which course workers were dispatched to cut drainage grooves in the racing surface in both two and four.
Undeterred Gordon was able to stretch his lead whenever green flag racing resumed with Johnson content to lead the chasing pack, which included a fast rising Kyle Busch in the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and Gillett-Evernham Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne. However a number of further caution periods including one for a brief rain shower at the lap 40 mark continued to peg the #24 Chevrolet back.
Eventually the rains returned for good on lap 81, thankfully while the field was already under caution for debris and during the round of pitstops that directly preceded the second red flag of the evening Gordon actually lost the lead to Johnson, who took advantage of the fact he was using the very last pit stall on pit road to take what turned out to be the overnight lead.
Sunday’s activities should have ended there, at roughly 6:30pm local time, but instead NASCAR tried to make best use of the floodlighting system and continued to try and dry the track against insurmountable odds. A restart time was set for 11pm local time but when it was clear that the track would not be race ready before midnight NASCAR finally sent the few remaining fans in the stands home and rescheduled the start for 10am Monday morning.
After grabbing a few precious hours sleep the drivers, teams and fans returned on Monday morning and it was soon clear that some of the strongest cars on Sunday would not be so much of a factor in the vastly different conditions of Monday morning.
![Carl Edwards, Roush-Fenway Ford [Pic Credit Ford Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/405819.jpg)
