Charlotte Motor Speedway's biggest weekend of the year is staring down three straight days of thunderstorms, with the 2026 Coca-Cola 600 at growing risk of being pushed to Monday.
WeatherUnderground's forecast, as cited by FanBuzz on Wednesday, calls for cloudy skies on Friday morning building into scattered afternoon and evening thunderstorms. Rain probability sits at 41 percent for Friday, the day the Craftsman Truck Series is due to practice and qualify before its scheduled 7:30 p.m. ET green flag. Any prolonged afternoon cell could compress the entire opening day's running window.
The outlook deteriorates further on Saturday. Showers are forecast for early morning, with cloud cover lifting before another round of thunderstorms sweeps the Concord area through the afternoon. The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series teams are slated to practice at 11 a.m. ET, but only if NASCAR can dry the track. Cup Series practice is set for 1:30 p.m. ET on Prime Video, when the chance of rain ticks up to 45 percent. The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race itself goes green at 5 p.m. ET on CW, with the forecast then climbing to 52 percent for scattered thunderstorms.
Sunday is what NASCAR is really watching. The Coca-Cola 600, the longest race on the schedule at 600 miles and the centrepiece of the Memorial Day sports calendar, is scheduled to roll off at 6 p.m. ET on Prime Video. The format is designed to run deep into the night under the lights at Charlotte. The current forecast calls for clouds in the morning and early afternoon followed by rain showers and scattered thunderstorms from 5 p.m. ET through to at least 10 p.m. ET, directly across the planned race window.
The last time Charlotte got hit this hard on the holiday weekend, NASCAR was forced into a complete schedule reset. The 2023 Coca-Cola 600 was postponed from Sunday to Monday and started in the afternoon on Memorial Day, finally finishing just before 9 p.m. ET on May 29. The Saturday O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race was bumped back as well, with Justin Allgaier eventually winning what turned into a fuel-mileage race that ended close to 11:30 p.m. ET that Monday night.
A repeat of that script is squarely on the table. With the truck race already vulnerable on Friday evening and the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series likely to face stoppages on Saturday, the dominoes could fall in any direction. NASCAR has historically tried to preserve the Memorial Day branding of the 600 wherever possible, which makes a Sunday late start, a rain delay, or a Monday move all live options.
For competitors, the unknowns ripple straight into strategy. Tyre and fuel windows for a 600-mile race are already among the most complex of the season. Add a damp weather start, the chance of red flags for showers, or a Monday daytime move with hotter track temperatures and the playbook changes completely. Denny Hamlin, the FOX Sports betting favourite for the race and freshly off his Dover All-Star Race win, has said the experience he is carrying into the Cup Series at the moment is more valuable than ever. Memorial Day weekend is where that experience can pay out.
The weather has also collided with one of the most emotional NASCAR weekends in recent memory. The death of two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch on Thursday evening has reshaped the mood at the speedway, with Hendrick Motorsports already cancelling its Friday Fan Fest and tributes expected throughout the weekend regardless of what the radar does.
NASCAR will be monitoring weather data in real time on Friday afternoon and reserves the option to move start times, shorten qualifying or shift schedules entirely. Fans heading to Charlotte are being urged to check the speedway's official channels for the latest updates throughout the holiday weekend.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/coca-cola-600-2026-rain-forecast-charlotte-memorial-weekend-threat). Visit for full coverage.*
