By Reid Spencer, Sporting News Wire Service
February 23, 2008
11:04 PM EST

FONTANA, Calif. — For the second consecutive day, rain played havoc with the racing schedule at Auto Club Speedway, forcing postponement of Saturday’s Stater Bros. 300 Nationwide Series race and shortening Sprint Cup practice to 34 minutes.

The Nationwide race has been rescheduled for Sunday, to be run after the conclusion of the Auto Club 500 Sprint Cup race, which has a scheduled start time of 4 p.m. ET.

Jeff Burton will start the Stater Bros. 300 from the pole because the No. 29 Chevrolet he drives won the owners’ championship for Richard Childress Racing last season, with Burton and Scott Wimmer splitting seat time in the car.

Drivers in the Cup series will start Sunday’s Auto Club 500 with the benefit only of the one rain-shortened practice session. All on-track activity, including qualifying for the Cup race and the Craftsman Truck Series San Bernardino 200, were washed out by rain on Friday.

Kyle Busch, who won the Truck Series race before the rain began to fall Saturday afternoon, says he could have used more practice time in preparation for Sunday’s Cup race.

“Our car wasn’t as good as I would have wanted it to be,” he said after the rain-shortened practice. “But it’s a long 500-mile race, and we’ve just got to keep on top of it and make changes as we need to and try to make this thing better all day long — and not get too frustrated with it and come up through the field.”

Hoping to become the first driver to win a race in each of NASCAR’s top three series on the same weekend, Busch will start 22nd in the Auto Club 500, having inherited the owner points earned by J.J. Yeley in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 18 car last year. Busch signed with Gibbs for the 2008 season after driving for Hendrick Motorsports in 2007.

Last November, Busch won the Craftsman Truck and Nationwide Series events at Phoenix before finishing eighth in the Cup race on the same weekend. Last July at Daytona International Speedway, he won the Nationwide race and finished second by .005 seconds to Jamie McMurray in the Pepsi 400 when rain forced both races to be run on the same day.