Rain puts Bass Pro Shops 500 on hold.

Mother Nature has intervened and forced the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 to be postponed until Monday after just 39 of 325 laps had been completed.

Kevin Harvick was the man on the move in the early stages of Sunday's part of the event, moving from tenth on the grid to first place inside 14 laps and maintaining his advantage through the first set of pitstops.

However the Georgia skies, which rained on the 1.54-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier on race morning had other ideas and forced the caution flag to wave on lap 33.

The field circled behind the safety car for several laps until, with the rain intensifying, NASCAR called everyone to pit road and brought out the red flag on lap 39.

Despite persistent efforts to utilise the floodlight system at AMS and complete the race on Sunday, the rain returned for good at 6pm local time and forced NASCAR to postpone the race until 11am local time on Monday morning (4pm UK Time).

Harvick will start leg two from first place with Bobby Labonte second, Bill Elliott third and Bobby Labonte fourth. Winston Cup point leader Matt Kenseth moved from 37th on the grid to 21st before the red flag although Busch Series driver Brian Vickers already saw his day turn sour when the radiator on his #25 UAW-Delphi Chevrolet overheated and caused terminal problems with the engine.