Hanna Could Play Havoc on Richmond Race

Saturday night's Sprint Cup race -- and potentially Friday night's Nationwide Series race -- appear to be in jeopardy of postponement thanks to the beautiful tropical weather.

And by beautiful I mean that nasty Tropical Storm Hanna that is currently churning off the coast of Florida.

Hanna -- which already has lived a short life as a hurricane -- is expected to strengthen some before it makes landfall late Friday night or early Saturday morning somewhere along the South Carolina coast.

The problem with that location is that Richmond, Va. is less than 300 miles to the north -- or about how far out the tropical storm-force winds and rain are extending right now. With the race Sprint Cup series race scheduled to start after 7pm/ET on Saturday, that rain and wind would have likely reached the Richmond area making it nearly impossible to run a race -- let alone keep fans safe if the storm gathers more strength.

Simply put, it's just not that good of an idea to try to run a lengthy outdoor event with conditions like that bearing down on the track, competition, and fans -- many of whom will have to drive straight into the storm following the conclusion of the event if it is run on time.

Right now, RIR and NASCAR say all things are a go for this weekend, but they are monitoring the situation and are providing updates twice-a-day.

If the race does get postponed, it brings up an interesting scenario for NASCAR because of the lack of an off-week before the season ends. More than likely, Richmond will be having rain in the forecast until at least Monday or Tuesday, so attempting to push back the event might not work so well.

Doubly, the race is last one before NASCAR locks in its Top-12 drivers for the Chase to the Championship, meaning that a complete weekend postponement would result in next week's race at New Hampshire being the final race to the cut off if Richmond gets rescheduled for later in the season -- potentially even being the season finale even after Homestead. (A season finale at Richmond? Now that would be fun)

The last time NASCAR had a season-finale change thanks to a postponement was in 2001 after the attacks on 9/11 moved the New Hampshire race to the last on the schedule, though Jeff Gordon had the championship wrapped up handily.

Of course, all of this is complete speculation as to what NASCAR & RIR will do for this weekend (heck, they might even push the race up to a Saturday afternoon affair though the ratings would be horrible) but it does seem like TS Hanna will have some influence over the weekend.