Much to the frustration of drivers, teams, and a stadium-full of fans who sat for hours in the chilling 25 mph wind waiting for the start, the Motegi Twin 300 was postponed for a day, because of water under the track.
While the old Champ Car drivers went to Long Beach for the Last hurrah of their old series, the majority of the IRL pack—nine teams—went to Japan for the Twin Motegi 300, the third race in the IRL season.
The Twin Motegi track is an 1.5-mile egg-shaped oval, with one end being of a much tighter circumference that the other. This makes setting up and driving the car more difficult–and more exciting—for the teams and drivers.
Japan was rainy and windy this week; the weather was so bad that qualifying had to be cancelled, and cars were assigned starting positions based on team points for the season.
The start of the race had to postponed due to the track "weeping" in turn four; tiny cracks in the track were oozing water, which would cause the cars to lose control if they traversed the cracks at racing speed.
The track crew drilled holes into the track in an attempt to get below the saturated sub-track layer, to wick the water away. However, several hours of labor did not solve the problem. With cars circulating at 200 mph on slick tires, even a slight film of moisture could have disastrous results.
The track crews tried their best; however, as the day wore on, series officials and track officials had to postpone the race, as even if the the race could have started, it would not have finished before darkness fell.
IRL Competition President Brian Barnhart said, "We never got a situation where the racetrack was presentable and safe to race on."
This puts extreme pressure on the crews, who have to work the race tomorrow, and then have only five days to pack up, fly back to Kansas, and get the car ready for the Kansas race next weekend.
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| 1—Helio Castroneves | 2—Scott Dixon |
| 3—Tony Kanaan | 4—Marco Andretti |
| 5—Dan Wheldon | 6—Danica Patrick |
| 7—Ed Carpenter | 8—AJ Foyt IV |
| 9—Hideki Mutoh | 10—Ryan Hunter-Reay |
| 11—Buddy Rice | 12—Darren Manning |
| 13—Vitor Meira | 14—Jay Howard |
| 15—Ryan Briscoe | 16—Townsend Bell |
| 17—Marty Roth | 18—Roger Yasukawa |