Now that Daytona is complete, things are going to adjust to what will ultimately be normal procedure. While the FIA World Endurance Championship will be testing in Qatar this weekend, NASCAR will be racing in North Georgia.
Where to Watch NASCAR This Week
This weekend, NASCAR is holding a tripleheader weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the second week in a row. Once again, the superspeedway rules will be in place.
The NASCAR Cup Series will once again serve as the headliners. There will be no practice this week as NASCAR still does not want to have it at superspeedway races outside of the Daytona 500. Qualifying is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. ET Saturday morning and will stream live on Amazon Prime Video.
Coverage of the Ambetter Health 400 will start with NASCAR RaceDay Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on FOX. Race coverage is scheduled to start at 3 p.m. ET with the green flag around 3:15 p.m. ET.
Also of note, if you subscribe to Max, you will have access to NASCAR Driver Cam. All 39 drivers in Sunday’s race will be live streaming in-car cameras. We have a full primer on the service to help you out.
Saturday is a doubleheader at Atlanta once the Cup teams are done qualifying. First up is the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Truck teams are scheduled to qualify Friday at 3:05 p.m. ET. Coverage will air live on FOX Sports 1 starting at 3 p.m. ET.
Coverage of the Fr8 208 is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1. While no pre-race coverage is noted on the TV schedule, the green flag is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET, so there will be some time for interviews prior to opening ceremonies.
For the NASCAR Xfinity Series, they are scheduled to qualify at 5:05 p.m. ET Friday. Coverage will be streamed on The CW app, or at The CW’s website.
Coverage of the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 will begin with NASCAR Countdown Live at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday on The CW. Race coverage will begin at 5 p.m. ET with the green flag around 5:10 p.m. ET.
What’s The Weather Looking Like?
Good news. There’s no real chance of rain this weekend.
The bad news is that it’s going to be chilly. The Atlanta area has had some of the coldest weather of the past decade this week. For those that live in colder climes, it might not be that much to write home about, but for those who live in Georgia, high temperatures failing to get out of the 30s is highly unusual.
You won’t have to deal with any of that during the afternoons at the track this weekend, but you will have cold mornings. The track is under a Cold Weather Advisory through 10 a.m. ET due to low temperatures in the mid-20s.
Friday will have sunny skies, but with a high of only 48°. Luckily, the winds will be light.
Saturday’s forecast is for sunny skies and a high of 52°. There will be a few more clouds than Friday.
Sunday’s forecast is for sunny skies and a high of 57°. Regardless of the day, bring a jacket along with you if you’re going, especially for the morning hours. Sunglasses as well.
TV Ratings Check — Daytona
Sunday’s rain-delayed broadcast of the Daytona 500 earned a 3.42 rating with an average of 6.761 million viewers. This is up only .12 of a Nielsen rating from last year’s broadcast on Monday. Viewership was up by more than three-quarters of a million.
However, the rain did some strange things to the viewership. Normally, a Cup race (and really, most sports broadcasts) will have the highest viewership at the end. Sunday’s race had the most viewership at the beginning. The start had nearly eight million viewers.
The rain pushed the race into prime time, but it ran up against Saturday Night Live’s SNL50 celebration. That show pulled in twice the audience of the race and more than likely negatively affected viewership.
On the brighter side, The CW’s broadcast of the NASCAR Xfinity Series United Rentals 300 earned a .9 rating with 1.825 million viewers. This is the highest-rated Xfinity Series race since Talladega in 2022.
Once again, there’s no direct comparison here since last year’s Xfinity opener was run on President’s Day as part of a doubleheader with the Daytona 500. That race earned a .52 rating with 933,000 viewers.
Friday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Fresh From Florida 250 earned a .53 rating with 990,000 viewers on FS1. This is down .05 of a rating and 67,000 viewers from last year, when the race earned a .58 rating with 1.057 million viewers.
Finally, FOX’s broadcast of the wreckfest known as the ARCA Menards Series Chili’s Ride the ‘Dente 200 had 1.160 million viewers. Once again, there is no real comparison to last year as weather forced ARCA to run the race at 10:30 p.m. ET after the Truck race due to a complete washout on the scheduled day. That race aired on FOX Sports 2 and attracted 203,000 viewers there.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.