DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – An afternoon at Daytona Int’l Speedway spotlighted by a pre-race visit from President Donald Trump was equally hindered by an unwanted visit from Mother Nature.

Despite the best efforts of NASCAR officials to run the 62nd annual Daytona 500 on Sunday, persistent rain showers – punctuated by a monsoon-level downpour just before 6:45 p.m. ET – forced the postponement of the majority of the race to Monday afternoon.

The Great American Race will resume at 4 p.m. ET Monday, live on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR.

An originally-scheduled 3:18 p.m. green flag was delayed slightly due to pre-race festivities featuring President Trump, including the President delivering the command to start engines and pacing the field for a lap in the presidential limousine.

After an additional pace lap honoring the start of seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson’s final full-time season, as the field was rounding turns three and four to come to the green flag, rain in turns one and two forced the caution lights back on – and a lap later, the field to pit road.

Nearly an hour’s delay ensued before green-flag racing was able to begin at 4:20 p.m., but only 20 laps of the scheduled 200 were able to be completed before a second wave of rainfall hit and brought out the red flag at 4:39 p.m.

From there, drying efforts were attempted amid additional sprinkles, but the heaviest rain of the day arrived at a quarter to 7 and wiped out any gains NASCAR had made on the racing surface.

The postponement announcement came roughly five minutes after the deluge began.

Polesitter Ricky Stenhouse Jr. led all 20 laps that were completed from the pole and will lead the field back to green when the 21st lap picks up on President’s Day.

Prior to the rain, Stenhouse was leading a largely single-file train around the 2.5-mile superspeedway, with most drivers not wanting to step out of line or make many moves knowing that weather was imminent.

Behind the No. 47 JTG-Daugherty Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE sat five Ford Mustangs, with Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski holding down positions two through six, respectively. They’ll line up in that order when the race goes back to green.

William Byron, Jimmie Johnson, Ty Dillon and Timmy Hill – who raced from 32nd to 10th during the opening stint – completed the top 10 at the time of Sunday’s postponement.

Parking lots at Daytona will open at 11 a.m. ET, with grandstand gates opening at 1 p.m.

The National Weather Service forecast for Monday calls for temperatures in the low 70s, with just a 17 percent chance of rain in the late afternoon.

Prior to Sunday, the most recent and only prior Daytona 500 to be postponed by inclement weather was the 2012 edition won by Matt Kenseth, which was pushed to Monday night due to rain and ultimately finished in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – After back-to-back years of poor results at Daytona Int’l Speedway, KohR Motorsports finally was given a reason to celebrate.

Finishes of 23rd in 2018 and 27th in 2019 in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Grand Sport class followed the team into 2020, and the odds seemed stacked against them once again this year.

In a surprising announcement the week before the season-opening BMW Endurance Challenge at Daytona last month, the longtime Ford competitor made a switch to Aston Martin, so much so even the team was surprised at the decision.

However, a closer examination of Aston Martin’s ladder system caught the eye of Mike Stacy and his 20-year-old son Nate, the latter of whom has driven with KohR and co-pilot Kyle Marcelli since his IMSA debut in late 2017. The team had brief conversations about the Aston Martin previously, but nothing extensive until learning more about the marque’s driver development program.

“The topic of the Aston Martin came back, especially with Aston Martin debuting the GT3 program,” said Team Owner Dean Martin. “Aston Martin does have a Driver Academy, and there are a lot of opportunities with the Aston. We talked about it, and I said to Mike, ‘Let’s sleep on this and wake up tomorrow with a clear head and fresh eyes after we’ve really had some time to think about it and then decide.’

“Around about 10 in the morning, I got a text to me, Nate, Kyle and one of our other guys that said, ‘Welcome to our new Aston Martin program for 2020.’ That’s when my life went sideways. You know, we were coming up on the holidays. We hadn’t even spoken to Aston Martin about being able to get a car.”

In an ironic twist, KohR hadn’t planned to run at the Roar Before the Rolex 24 At Daytona test on Jan. 3-5, but only because they still had their Ford Mustang GT4 and the car’s data from past years. They wound up not attending because they wouldn’t take delivery of their new Aston Martin Vantage GT4 until Jan. 9.

A handful of testing days in the next two weeks would be all the drivers and teams would have before racing at Daytona. But it was enough.

Stacy would go on to qualify the No. 60 “Race for RP”-liveried Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the fourth position and between him, Marcelli and the team’s work in the pits, KohR held on to a fifth-place result.

“Coming into Daytona, it was a big question mark on if we had a long-distance car, and I think considering the small amount of testing we had, it went spectacularly,” said Stacy. “The car ran smoothly, and we had a clean, solid finish for our first race of the season. Compared to the last two years of my IMSA career, this is the best I’ve ever finished Daytona. Starting the season off with 26 points instead of 8 could be a serious game changer.”

Marcelli echoed his co-drivers sentiments, as especially the 2018 race at Daytona continues to haunt KohR.

“We are pretty thrilled to start the season with a top-five because we have left Daytona the past two years with a DNF, and that makes for a long season of playing catch up,” said Marcelli. “We were able to rebound pretty quickly in 2018 and go on to finish second in the championship, but in 2019, we struggled to just get back inside the championship’s top-five by the end.”

While they did squeeze in to finish fifth in the standings by eight points, this year’s race at Daytona makes it a little easier to go after the 2020 championship. Also, making it more accessible is how the transition to the Aston Martin has been an overall positive experience.

“Switching to the Aston Martin has been amazing so far,” Stacy explained. “I couldn’t ask for much more support from the factory, and I have to thank the guys from KohR Motorsports for being so adaptable with all the new challenges. The Aston is a very user-friendly car, finding the limit isn’t too difficult. It’s just a matter of maximizing its strong suits.”

“The Aston is a very well built and well-engineered car, especially as a race car, it’s very easy to work on,” Martin agreed. “Learning the little nuances that this car likes is the challenge. It responds well to changes, and the electronics are extremely well engineered and designed.

“As the year progresses and we’ve got to work on the car more and more, we’ll learn it. We’ve got a great group of guys with a lot of experience, so it hasn’t been very difficult. But in fairness, we haven’t had any real challenges with the car to date.”

With the team’s dark cloud of Daytona turned bright, they are focused on the upcoming races and securing a title. As far as which rung Stacy is at in Aston Martin’s ladder system, Martin speaks highly of the one he’s on.

“If you’re trying to progress your career in racing, Pilot Challenge is the only place to be,” said Martin. “You’re racing against the most talented guys, and even some of these guys are (IMSA) WeatherTech (SportsCar Championship) drivers and WeatherTech pros. The depth of talent in the Pilot field is pretty significant. In my opinion, if you’re going to develop as a driver, this is where you need to be.”

ENSENADA, Mexico – RPM Racing, located in Bristol, Va., which has fielded at least five vehicles each race since it started racing in the SCORE World Desert Championship in 2006, has taken a sabbatical from racing while team co-owner and principal driver Justin Matney recovers from heart surgery and Valley Fever.

Clyde Stacy, who co-owns RPM Racing with Matney, has reported that the heart operation was successful and Matney is now resting and rehabbing at home since Feb. 13 while he recovers from surgery conducted on Feb. 5 at the Cleveland Clinic Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

Matney, 34, was scheduled and had mitral heart valve surgery and then the clinic also removed a mass from his lung that turned out to be the result of Valley Fever that is caused by breathing the dust during extensive racing in the Southwestern United States and Baja California, Mexico.

Doctors anticipate a full-recovery period of approximately six months for Matney.

“We anticipate a return to a full schedule of SCORE desert racing in 2021, and look forward to racing for championships in several different classes next year,” said Matney. “The thoughts and prayers of the desert racing community are greatly appreciated.  RPM is targeting a return to the SCORE World Desert Championship for this year’s wild and wonderful SCORE Baja 1,000 peninsula run.”

“We are so relieved and pleased that Justin’s surgery went so well and all of us with SCORE family wish him a complete and quick recovery,” said Jose A. Grijalva, SCORE president and race director. “While RPM has been an amazing and integral part of SCORE racing for over a decade, health and family always come first.”

“Justin and Clyde have also been strong supporters of racers, providing the best equipment and team to support several promising drivers over the years that have been a part of their team at various times. We look forward to the return of RPM Racing when the timing is right.”

Matney has won six SCORE class championships, highlighted by a SCORE-record three titles in 2011 when he won titles in Class 8, Class 11 and Stock Mini. His season class titles were won in 2009, 2011 (3), 2012 and 2014. His most recent class championship was in 2014 when he won two races en route to capturing the unlimited Class 1 season title.

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colorado -- The Air Force Academy is blaming car accidents and ill-prepared drivers for traffic jams that were so bad before and after the NHL's Stadium Series game at Falcon Stadium that some fans didn't enter until the third period.

Several thousand fans among the sellout crowd of 43,574 arrived late to the Los Angeles Kings' 3-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night. With fans complaining on social media and in interviews that they missed much of the game and a concert by country singer Sam Hunt during the first intermission, the Air Force released a statement saying fans had been warned aplenty to get to the game early and that numerous accidents on Interstate 25 were partly to blame for the delays in getting to the game.

The academy said a man died in an accident at the base's north gate after the game but gave no information on how the man died. Traffic was rerouted out of the south gate with the rest of the cars, creating hours-long waits for many of the fans leaving the football stadium.

The academy said it did all it could to ease traffic congestion ahead of the 6 p.m. MT game, opening gates at 5:30 a.m. and eliminating vehicle ID checks at 12:30 p.m.

"In the hours leading up to the game, there were numerous road condition changes and unforeseen events including multiple lane closures in both the northbound and southbound lanes of I-25, emergency pothole repairs that forced further lane closures, and multiple vehicle accidents between Castle Rock and Monument," the academy said. "Despite our best efforts, all of these, added to the already challenging traffic conditions along the I-25 corridor, combined and unfortunately impacted some fans travelling to the game."

Postgame traffic was funneled to leave the academy through its two main gates, but northbound vehicles had to be diverted to the south gate after the fatal accident at the north gate so that emergency response crews and investigators could reach the scene, the academy said.

"While the details of that incident are still under investigation, we are devastated by the event and send the deepest condolences to his loved ones," the academy said. "We thank all of the crews who worked to clear traffic from the base despite only having one gate and we appreciate the patience and understanding of everyone impacted."

Earlier in the day, the academy said in a news release that the man who was killed was a civilian not affiliated with the academy or the Department of Defense and that the death was being investigated by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and local law enforcement agencies.

The 2019-20 NHL season has already featured some significant trades, led by the Taylor Hall swap between the Arizona Coyotes and New Jersey Devils. With the trade deadline looming on Feb. 24, stay up to date with all the moves around the league, from the blockbusters down to the moves involving minor-league players and picks.

Feb. 16: Tampa Bay Lightning-New Jersey Devils

Lightning get: F Blake Coleman

Devils get: F Nolan Foote, 2020 first-round pick (Vancouver, conditional)

Feb. 16: New York Islanders-New Jersey Devils

Islanders get: D Andy Greene

Devils get: D David Quenneville, 2021 second-round pick

Feb. 10: Pittsburgh Penguins-Minnesota Wild

Penguins get: F Jason Zucker

Wild get: F Alex Galchenyuk, D Calen Addison, 2020 conditional first-round pick

Feb. 5: Toronto Maple Leafs-Los Angeles Kings

Leafs get: G Jack Campbell, F Kyle Clifford

Kings get: F Trevor Moore, 2020 third-round pick, 2021 conditional third-round pick

Jan. 17: Pittsburgh Penguins-Dallas Stars

Penguins get: D John Nyberg

Stars get: F Oula Palve

Jan. 7: Montreal Canadiens-Nashville Predators

Canadiens get: F Laurent Dauphin

Predators get: F Michael McCarron

Jan. 2: Buffalo Sabres-Calgary Flames

Sabres get: F Michael Frolik

Flames get: 2020 fourth-round pick

Jan. 2: Montreal Canadiens-Buffalo Sabres

Canadiens get: D Marco Scandella

Sabres get: 2020 fourth-round pick

Jan. 2: Montreal Canadiens-Ottawa Senators

Canadiens get: F Andrew Sturtz

Senators get: D Mike Reilly

Dec. 17: Pittsburgh Penguins-Florida Panthers

Penguins get: F Kevin Roy

Panthers get: F Ryan Haggerty

Dec. 16: Arizona Coyotes-New Jersey Devils

Coyotes get: F Taylor Hall, F Blake Speers

Devils get: F Nate Schnarr, F Nick Merkley, D Kevin Bahl, 2020 first-round pick, 2021 third-round pick

Dec. 12: Detroit Red Wings-Carolina Hurricanes

Red Wings get: D Kyle Wood

Hurricanes get: D Oliwer Kaski

Dec. 2: Washington Capitals-Vegas Golden Knights

Capitals get: 2021 fifth-round pick

Knights get: F Chandler Stephenson

Nov. 30: Detroit Red Wings-Arizona Coyotes

Red Wings get: G Eric Comrie

Coyotes get: D Vili Saarijarvi

Nov. 24: Tampa Bay Lightning-Buffalo Sabres

Lightning get: D Devante Stephens

Sabres get: D Matt Spencer

Nov. 20: Chicago Blackhawks-Pittsburgh Penguins

Blackhawks get: F Joseph Cramarossa

Penguins get: F Graham Knott

Nov. 6: Detroit Red Wings-St. Louis Blues

Red Wings get: F Robby Fabbri

Blues get: F Jacob de la Rose

Nov. 1: New Jersey Devils-Tampa Bay Lightning

Devils get: G Louis Domingue

Lightning get: 2021 seventh-round pick (conditional)

Oct. 28: Detroit Red Wings-Chicago Blackhawks

Red Wings get: F Brendan Perlini

Blackhawks get: D Alec Regula

Oct. 26: Ottawa Senators-Florida Panthers

Senators get: F Jack Rodewald

Panthers get: F Chris Wilkie

Oct. 25: Anaheim Ducks-Pittsburgh Penguins

Ducks get: D Erik Gudbranson

Penguins get: F Andreas Martinsen, 2021 seventh-round pick

Oct. 22: Chicago Blackhawks-Florida Panthers

Blackhawks get: D Ian McCoshen

Panthers get: F Aleksi Saarela

Oct. 7: Ottawa Senators-New York Rangers

Senators get: F Vladislav Namestnikov

Rangers get: D Nick Ebert, 2021 fourth-round pick

Oct. 7: Vancouver Canucks-Detroit Red Wings

Canucks get: F David Pope

Red Wings get: D Alex Biega

Sept. 27: Colorado Avalanche-San Jose Sharks

Avalanche get: G Antoine Bibeau

Sharks get: D Nicolas Meloche

Sept. 24: St. Louis Blues-Carolina Hurricanes

Blues get: D Justin Faulk, 2020 fifth-round pick

Hurricanes get: D Joel Edmundson, F Dominik Bokk, 2021 seventh-round pick

The New York Islanders acquired New Jersey Devils captain Andy Greene on Sunday in exchange for David Quenneville and a 2021 second-round draft pick.

The 37-year-old Greene, a defenseman, has spent all of his 14-year NHL career with the Devils and has been the team's captain the past five seasons. He will be an unrestricted free agent after this season.

The deal:

Islanders get: D Andy Greene

Devils get: D David Quenneville, 2021 second-round pick

New York Islanders: B-

The New Jersey Devils completed their second trade of the day, sending forward Blake Coleman to the Tampa Bay Lightning, with prospect Nolan Foote (son of former NHLer Adam Foote) and Vancouver's 2020 first-round pick (previously acquired in the J.T. Miller trade) heading to Newark. How did each side do in the swap?

The deal:

Lightning get: F Blake Coleman

Devils get: F Nolan Foote, 2020 first-round pick (Vancouver)

Tampa Bay Lightning: B-

Here are the purse and FedExCup point breakdowns for winner Adam Scott and the rest of the players who made the cut at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera:

Adam Scott fired a final-round 70 to win the Genesis Invitational for his first PGA Tour win since 2016. Here's a look inside his bag:

DRIVER: Titleist TS4 (10.5 degrees), with Mitsubishi Kuro Kage Tini S 80 shaft

FAIRWAY WOOD: Titleist TS2 (16.5 degrees), with Fujikura Rombax P95 shaft

IRONS: Titleist 715 T-MB (3), 680 (4-9), with KBS Tour shafts

WEDGES: Titleist Vokey Design SM8 (48, 52, 56, 60 degrees), with True Temper Dynamic Gold AMT X100 shafts

PUTTER: Scotty Cameron Xperimental long prototype

BALL: Titleist Pro V1

LOS ANGELES – Tied for the lead Sunday at the Genesis Invitational, Harold Varner III tried to hammer a 3-wood off the 10th tee when he did the unthinkable: He hit a few inches behind the ball, chunking his tee shot just 129 yards.

“I missed the ball – completely missed it,” he said in the locker room afterward. “Just sucks, man. You’re f----- pretty much. Terrible timing, huh?”

Indeed, on any other short par 4, that’d leave Varner an uncomfortable but manageable distance into the green. But Riviera’s 10th green is one of the most diabolical in the world, and it requires a precise shot from 25 or 75 yards, much less 177 yards into a crosswind.

Varner’s second shot sailed wide left, then his third pitched over the green and into the back bunker. From there he splashed out to 12 feet and two-putted for a double-bogey 6, tumbling him down the leaderboard. On the next hole, he bogeyed the par 5 after finding the right trees. Just like that, he was doomed. He eventually tied for 13th.

“Doubles shouldn’t stop you from playing good golf the rest of the way,” he said. “It just sucks how I doubled it.”

The good news for Varner is that the CBS broadcast didn’t initially show his blunder off the tee. In fact, he said, he’d forgotten about it until a reporter brought it up to him after his closing 74.

“I felt fine,” said Varner, who’d missed his previous four cuts this year and was vying for his first career Tour victory. “Just a bad shot. I’ve done it before, though. That’s what’s pretty funny.”

Yes, he hit the exact same shot last fall in Korea, while playing with Tyrrell Hatton. Same wind. Same poor contact. Same result.

“I’m gonna call Tyrrell and say that I did it again,” Varner said. “He’s gonna laugh his a-- off.”