NASCAR moves up start time for Pocono Cup race due to weather threat

Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway was originally scheduled to start just after 3pm EST, with the green flag planned for 3:21pm EST.

Due to the threat of inclement weather, the start of Sunday's 400-mile/160-lap event has been moved up a full two hours to 1pm EST. Such a change is partly thanks to this leg of the NASCAR season existing on the streaming platform Prime Video, which can be far more flexible than traditional cable when adjusting start times.

The Prime pre-race show will start at 12pm EST, with driver introductions around 12:30pm EST.

There will be no change to the opening times for the parking lots (6 am EST) and gates (8 am EST) at the Pennsylvania track.

The Great American Getaway 400 is set to be the 16th round of the 2026 NASCAR Cup season. Chase Briscoe enters as the defending winner of this race. Practice and qualifying are scheduled to take place on Saturday afternoon, preceding the NASCAR O'Reilly race.

Pocono has been a part of the NASCAR schedule since 1974, and the summer event has often been impacted by inclement weather over the years. The race has been shortened by rain five times, with Chris Buescher earning his first career win the last time it happened in 2016. The race has been fully postponed a further three times, and the 2002 race had to be ended early due to darkness.