Rain forces postponement of NASCAR's Food City 500 until Monday

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- The Food City 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, scheduled for a Sunday afternoon start, was postponed until Monday because of steady rain.

The eighth race of the season will be contested at 1 p.m. ET and broadcast on FOX.

The hourly weather forecast for Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday has rain chances of at least 90 percent every hour until midnight. The Weather Channel forecast has rain continuing until about 9 a.m. Monday.

When the race gets underway, Kyle Larson will start on the pole. He garnered the top starting point as a result of rain forcing the cancellation of qualifying on Friday and the starting grid being set by car owner points. It is Larson's third pole in the last four races.

"It's been a good season for us," Larson said. "Our race cars have been really fast. I've scored stage points in all but one of the stages. That is important to be the point leader. You've got to be running top-10 every race to gain as many points as you can. Like I said, our race cars have been extremely good to allow us to run up front like that. Hopefully, we can keep it going.

"It's nice to be the point leader and be starting up front here at Bristol. I always race really well here. I just don't qualify well. Being handed the pole like this will, hopefully, help us out on Tuesday or Wednesday, or whenever we race. It will be cool to start from the front and, hopefully, like I said, hopefully, that number one pit stall kind of helps us gain some spots on pit road and have a clean race."

Chase Elliott will start the race second, next to Larson on the front row, making for an all-Chevrolet front row. Starting in the second and third rows will be Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. and Ford drivers Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.

NOTES: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regulars Erik Jones, Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney were impressive in the Saturday NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway -- Jones as the race winner and leader of 29 laps, Larson as the dominant driver in the race by leading 180 laps, and Blaney by leading 61 laps. ... A VHT resin to the bottom groove of the race track, heading into the Bristol race weekend, was to entice drivers to race the bottom line. But rain at the track throughout the weekend has affected the "stickiness" of the resin. ... Carl Edwards, who isn't racing in 2017, was the winner of last year's Food City 500. Kevin Harvick won the most recent Cup Series race at Bristol last August. ... Brothers Kurt and Kyle Busch are tied for most Bristol wins among active drivers with five apiece. They are tied with Jeff Gordon and David Pearson for fifth on the all-time Bristol wins list.