We’ve got a pretty busy weekend on tap. The Round of 8 will get underway for both the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Series. Meanwhile, IMSA’s top-three series will wrap their seasons at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Las Vegas NASCAR TV Schedule
- ARCA Menards Series West Star Nursery 150: 9:45 p.m. ET Friday on FLORacing
- NASCAR Xfinity Series Practice: 2 p.m. ET Saturday on The CW App
- NASCAR Xfinity Series Qualifying: 3:05 p.m. ET Saturday on The CW App
- NASCAR Cup Series Practice: 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday on TruTV/HBO Max
- NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying: 5:40 p.m. ET Saturday on TruTV/HBO Max
- NASCAR Xfinity Series Focused Health 302: 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday on The CW
- NASCAR Cup Series South Point 400: 5:30 p.m. ET Sunday on USA Network
This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series makes its second visit of the year to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This time, we have playoff fever in play. Also, remember that Las Vegas is in the Pacific Time Zone, so the local time is three hours behind Eastern time.
While teams are scheduled to load into the Neon Garage Friday, Cup teams effectively have a two-day in Las Vegas as there won’t be any real work allowed on the cars until Saturday morning.
Practice is scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon with live coverage on TruTV and HBO Max. Qualifying will follow at 5:40 p.m. ET.
Coverage of the South Point 400 is scheduled to begin with Countdown to Green at 5 p.m. ET Sunday afternoon on USA Network. Race coverage will begin at 5:30 p.m. ET with the green at 5:35 p.m. ET.
Supporting the Cup teams will be the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Those teams are scheduled to load into the garage midday Friday and will have a work day.
Practice is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon (11 a.m. local time) with live coverage on The CW App and The CW’s website. Qualifying will follow at 3:05 p.m. ET. Unlike previous weeks, these sessions will likely be exclusive to the app and website due to The CW airing college football during the session.
Coverage of the Focused Health 302 will begin with NASCAR Countdown Live at 7 p.m. ET Saturday night on The CW. Race coverage is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. ET with the green flag around 7:40 p.m. ET.
Note that pre-race coverage is scheduled to begin immediately after coverage of Wake Forest-Oregon State. If that game runs long, there is the possibility of coverage being pushed to NewsNation, a Nexstar Media Group-owned cable network.
Outside of turns 1 and 2 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway lies The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a flat 3/8-mile oval that turns 40 this year. The track will play host to the tertiary series on the docket this week, ARCA Menards Series West.
West teams will be loading into the pits at the bullring midday Thursday. There are three open practice sessions (one 45 minutes, the other two 35) starting at 7:30 p.m. ET. These will not be officially timed.
On Friday, teams will have a 60-minute regular practice session starting at 5:35 p.m. ET. Qualifying is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. ET. None of the practice sessions or qualifying will be televised.
Coverage of the Star Nursery 150 is technically going to be combined with SPEARS CARS Tour West Friday night. That coverage is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET on FLORacing. ARCA Menards Series West coverage will begin at 9:45 p.m. ET with the green flag at 10 p.m. ET.
What’s The Weather Looking Like? NASCAR Hurricane in Las Vegas?
Oh boy. This could be a tough one.
As of this writing, Hurricane Priscilla, a high-end Category 2 hurricane, is swirling off the coast of Baja California. It is currently forecast to weaken significantly, then make landfall on the Baja Peninsula Friday night into Saturday as a tropical storm.
Before the storm makes landfall, moisture will stream up into the Las Vegas area from the Pacific, resulting in a decent rainfall for the region. Much of Thursday looks to be a washout, eliminating the currently-scheduled open practice sessions at the Bullring for ARCA Menards Series West.
There will be a continuing chance of showers and thunderstorms for Friday and Saturday in the region. Remember that it doesn’t particularly take all that much rain in Las Vegas to cause problems, especially since the city has seen less than three inches of rain for the entire year to this point. The ground is hard as heck and a lot of this moisture is not going to be absorbed into the soil. It’s going to run off, meaning that there’s a threat of flash flooding.
The hope is that the rainfall isn’t all that substantial. If that happens, the flood risk would be lower, as would the threat of damage. Things will be far worse in Arizona, where some areas could see five inches of rain or more. Mudslides could be in play in higher elevations, even in Nevada. If the storm tracks a little further west, the whole weekend could be in trouble as a result of damage to local infrastructure from water.
What is clear is that once the moisture exits town, it will be much drier and cooler. High temperatures early this week hovered around 90°. It won’t be that warm, but you’ll have a different kind of heat to deal with.
Friday is going to be tricky. The forecast is for mostly cloudy skies with a chance of thunderstorms and a high of 81°. If the storms hit, things will get sketchy. Regardless, it’s going to be humid.
Saturday will have more sun. That will allow the temperatures to rise potentially into the mid-80s. However, the tropical weather from Priscilla’s remnants means that there will be a lot of moisture in the air. That will result in a high chance of thunderstorms. If they hit the track, you’ll have delays.
Sunday’s South Point 400 will be the best day of the weekend. The rain will be gone; there will be sunny skies with a high of 80°.
What’s sad about this likely mess is the fact that 2025 has had next to no weather issues. No races have been postponed to this point, although there have been cancelled qualifying sessions.
Normally, the second race weekend in Las Vegas is always dry. In the seven previous fall race weekends for the Cup Series there, it’s never rained.
The real issue in the past has been heat. The first three years saw the race scheduled at the beginning of the playoffs in mid-September. Weather that time of year is typically sunny and around 100° in Las Vegas. That’s what they had.
Needless to say, 100° weather is not exactly swell to race in, even if it’s a dry heat. The same goes for watching the race.
In the interest of making for a more comfortable environment for racers, and to boost attendance, the race was moved back into the month of October in 2021. Now, the weather is more hospitable for everyone.
TV Ratings Check — Charlotte ROVAL
Sunday’s broadcast of the NASCAR Cup Series Bank of America ROVAL 400k got a .80 rating with 1.544 million viewers on USA Network. This is down 36.2% from last year. That race aired on NBC and had 2.419 million viewers. It is worth noting that this was the first Cup race on the ROVAL to air on cable.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series Blue Cross North Carolina 250k had 808,000 viewers Saturday. This is down by 26,000 viewers over last year’s race that had 834,000.
Friday afternoon’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Ecosave 250k had 279,000 viewers. There is no comparison since this was an inaugural event. The viewership isn’t great, but we’ve seen a number of Truck races around this viewership figure in 2025. Obviously, racing at 3:30 p.m. ET on a non-holiday Friday is far from ideal (they were finishing stage two right as I got home from work).
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.