NASCAR would consider moving up race start times because of weather

Fans would prefer an early start time if it meant getting the race in

On Tuesday night, Major League Baseball announced it was moving the start time of Wednesday's World Series Game 2 an hour earlier based on rain in the forecast. Fox adjusted its TV schedule to accommodate the change. So when bad weather is predicted, why can't NASCAR do the same for its events? Well, it can — under the right circumstances.

"Every situation is unique, but we would consider altering a scheduled race start time due to weather, especially if we thought it would benefit fans," said Steve Herbst, NASCAR senior vice president, broadcasting and production, in a statement to USA TODAY Sports.

"There are a multitude of variables that would factor into such a decision that would include tracks, broadcast partners and all of our stakeholders. That said, we would be open to having those discussions on a case-by-case basis and have had initial conversations of how that could work in 2017."

Traditionally, NASCAR has been reluctant to move up the green flag time by more than 10 or 15 minutes – using the listed TV time as a barrier (when the race broadcast begins). NBC and Fox both declined to comment to USA TODAY Sports for this story, instead referring comment to NASCAR — but it's clear there's some flexibility if the sport's officials, the network and the venue all agree. That was what happened for Wednesday night's World Series game, and it could potentially be the case at some point in NASCAR. USA Today