August 27, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

NASCAR schedules Daytona doubleheader for Saturday after rain delays Xfinity race

With 19 laps in the books, NASCAR called the Wawa 250 for inclement weather at Daytona International Speedway on Friday night. 

The race will resume on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on NBCSN.

AJ Allmendinger and Noah Gragson swapped the lead three times before NASCAR called the competition caution on Lap 16 with the No. 9 Chevy at the point. Allmendinger, who had led a race-high 16 laps was scored the leader when NASCAR red-flagged the race for weather followed by Christopher Bell and Myatt Snider. Austin Cindric, the defending NXS champion, and points leader, was fourth.

Brandon Jones entered the race ninth in the standings and was running as high as second before the No. 19 Toyota began to overheat due to debris on the grille. Jones was forced to pit, then retired to the garage under caution.

"I hate to go out like this," said Jones, who finished 40th. "You don’t expect to go out like this at Daytona. You’re either on the hook or you’re doing really well. At this point in the race I thought we were doing really well. I don’t know, man. I’ve only had this happen one other time where we pushed that much water out of this thing. I just think we picked up something on the front end of our Supra there. We were pushing a lot of water out for a couple of laps and they don’t run good without water in them. I was surprised with how fast it went.

"Obviously, I think me and Jeff (Meendering, crew chief) are beating ourselves up pretty hard right. We both probably would’ve done something different there to try and get that off. When you’re out front like htat no one really wants to try to work with you and try to get it off your nose. Obviously, for the reasons of a competitor, I wouldn’t want to do that. It is what it is. I’ve got a group of warriors on our 19 team. Michigan was great – that was awesome to see our speed there at Michigan so we’ll rally from that and use some momentum there. Darlington is a great track for us next week. We won there and looking to get another one.”