With Memorial Day weekend complete, things are only going to be a little calmer. Indeed, the six biggest series that Frontstretch covers will all be in action.
NASCAR’s national-level series will all be at Nashville Superspeedway. Meanwhile, the NTT IndyCar Series will be in Detroit for its post-Indianapolis action with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on the undercard. Formula 1 will be at one of its longtime haunts, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.
NASCAR Nashville TV Schedule
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Practice: 4:30 p.m. ET Friday on FS1
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying: 5:10 p.m. ET Friday on FS1
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Rackley Roofing 200: 8 p.m. ET Friday on FS1
- NASCAR Xfinity Series Practice: 2:05 p.m. ET Saturday on The CW App
- NASCAR Xfinity Series Qualifying: 3:10 p.m. ET Saturday on The CW App
- NASCAR Cup Series Practice: 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday on Amazon Prime Video
- NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying: 5:40 p.m. ET Saturday on Amazon Prime Video
- NASCAR Xfinity Series Tennessee Lottery 250: 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday on The CW
- NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400: 7 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime Video
This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series will make its fifth visit to Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. Teams will face a different climate this year as the race is a month earlier in the year.
For Cup teams, practice is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon with live coverage on Amazon Prime Video. Qualifying will follow shortly afterwards.
Coverage of the Cracker Barrel 400 will begin with NASCAR Live at 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday night on Prime Video. Race coverage will start at 7 p.m. ET with the green flag around 7:15 p.m. ET.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series will be back for its 26th visit to the 1.33-mile tri-oval this weekend. Teams will do most of their preparations on Friday, but all on-track activity will take place on Saturday.
Practice is scheduled to begin at 2:05 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon. Coverage will start at 2 p.m. ET on The CW App and on The CW’s website. Qualifying will follow shortly afterwards. Note that some CW affiliates will air practice and qualifying live. Check your local listings to see if your affiliate is one of them.
Coverage of the Tennessee Lottery 250 will begin with NASCAR Countdown Live at 7 p.m. ET Saturday night on The CW. Race coverage will begin at 7:30 p.m. and the green flag should fall around 7:40 p.m. ET.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has a one-day show in Tennessee. Practice is scheduled to begin at 4:05 p.m. ET Friday. However, the coverage will be joined in progress on FS1 at 4:30 p.m. ET. Qualifying will follow shortly afterwards.
According to available schedules, the beginning of practice will be pre-empted on FS1 by an episode of First Things First. If that changes, we will update this column.
Coverage of the Rackley Roofing 200 will begin at 8 p.m. ET Friday night on FS1. The green flag will fly around 8:20 p.m. ET.
What’s the Weather Looking Like?
The race weekend being moved up a month seems to be a positive move right now. As you may remember, the Cup race in particular has been plagued by rain and lightning. More than one race has had a multiple-hour rain delay.
Friday will be the worst of the three days. There will be a lot of rain Thursday night that will continue into Friday. The steadiest of the rain should be done by the time the Trucks would be venturing onto the track, but there is still a chance of showers. High temperatures should be around 70°.
Saturday has a lower chance of thunderstorms, but it’ll also be a bit warmer with temperatures ranging from the upper 70s to low 80s.
On Sunday, there is a chance of stray showers, but nothing heavy. High temperatures will be around 80 degrees, but since this race is at night, it’ll be in the upper 60s to mid-70s during the race.
How Were the Amazon Prime Video Ratings for the Coca-Cola 600?
Going into the Prime Video portion of the NASCAR Cup Series season, there was a real possibility that we would be unable to bring you viewership for Cup races. For the most part, viewership of anything on streaming services is kept very close to the vest. The services themselves know how many people watch everything, but rarely share numbers.
However, Amazon signed up for Nielsen measurement of ratings for its five Cup races. They will be the first non-NFL games on Prime Video that will be measured in such fashion.
While we don’t have a Nielsen rating for the race, we do have viewership data. The average viewership for Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 was 2.724 million viewers. That is down 12.2% overall from last year, but a higher viewership than any of the races on FS1 this year. It was the sixth-most watched broadcast in prime-time Sunday night behind Game No. 3 of the Indiana Pacers-New York Knicks series, two episodes of 60 Minutes, Tracker and America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Additional information released indicated that the race attracted an average viewer that was roughly six years younger than recent races. All of the lost viewership from last year is from people 55 and older that either couldn’t watch or chose not to watch.
The strangest part of the data indicates that the highest viewership came around 8:15-8:30 p.m. ET. That is a little before the midpoint of the race and highly unusual. Under most circumstances, like with Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 on FOX, viewership peaks at the end.
Saturday’s broadcast of the Xfinity Series BetMGM 300 had 1.148 million viewers on The CW. This is down only 9,000 viewers from last year, when the race aired on FOX. It also means that The CW has had a million or more viewers for the first 13 Xfinity races of the year.
On the other hand, FS1’s coverage of the Craftsman Truck Series North Carolina Education Lottery 200 earned a .24 rating with 412,000 viewers. This is down 20.7% from last year. Sadly, that’s part of a trend this season as while we’ve seen some positive looks from Cup and Xfinity this season, most Truck telecasts are down significantly from 2024.
We don’t actually have data on all of the Truck races (for example, nothing was ever released for Rockingham or North Wilkesboro), but there hasn’t been a ratings or viewership increase for the series all year. Daytona was down 6%. Atlanta was down 26%. Las Vegas was down 46%. The typical drop has been around what we saw in Charlotte. It’s been rough for FOX.
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.