The rain-delayed Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 finally was run to its conclusion Monday. Based on all available evidence, that was a small miracle.

Cleaning crews assigned to police the grandstands before fans returned after a rainy Sunday apparently didn’t show, so Atlanta Motor Speedway president Ed Clark called troops from his own staff in early to pitch in and tidy up.

It’s possible that action became necessary because NASCAR snatched the sweepers and put them in charge of race-day operations.

If NASCAR wasn’t using untrained replacement labor for such functions, then the events of the day certainly reflect poorly on its ability to administer what’s supposed to be a big-time event.

We’ll start with what happened around the Lap 100 mark in a race that had been put on hold after 39 laps Sunday.

Several cars running near the front of the field had made pit stops before, on Lap 102, Ricky Rudd’s Ford went sliding across the fronstretch into the grass in the trioval. Several had not.

Throwing a yellow flag at that point was bound to cause confusion. Even with electronic transponders and television cameras everywhere, a caution in the middle of a round of green flag stops muddles things up considerably. Add the still relatively new procedures that go with the ban on racing back to the yellow, and conditions for a full-blown boondoggle were in place.

“It was mass confusion,” said Jeff Gordon, the eventual race winner.

Kurt Busch hadn’t pitted and was leading at that moment. NASCAR eventually ruled that Busch hadn’t slowed quickly enough and sent him to the end of the longest line for the restart while allowing Gordon and Kevin Harvick to get back onto the tail end of the lead lap.

That meant, for a moment, that Jimmy Spencer would get a lap back under the new rules. After he’d pitted on that assumption, though, NASCAR decided that Bill Elliott’s car deserved the free pass. So, in effect, Spencer had put himself back a lap down because of what NASCAR had told him.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Gordon said.

Neither did anybody else.