This weekend will be a busy one. While the major open wheel series are off, licking their wounds after wild weekends at Mid-Ohio and Silverstone, all of NASCAR’s National-level series will be in action, and there will be plenty of sports car racing out there for your viewing pleasure as well.
NASCAR Atlanta/Lime Rock TV Schedule
- ARCA Menards Series Lime Rock Park 100: 4 p.m. ET Friday on FS2
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Practice: 9 a.m. ET Saturday on FS2, 9:30 a.m. ET on FS1
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying: 10:05 a.m. ET Saturday on FS1
- NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Qualifying: 11 a.m. ET Saturday on The CW App
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series LiUNA! 150: 1 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1
- NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying: 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday on TruTV/HBO Max
- NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Focused Health 250: 7 p.m. ET Saturday on The CW
- NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart: 7 p.m. ET Sunday on TNT/TruTV/HBO Max
This weekend is a split weekend as NASCAR will be at EchoPark Speedway in Georgia and Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. Frontstretch will have you covered since we will have people at both races.
In Atlanta, we have a shortened race weekend. Since the track is now considered a superspeedway since the most recent reconfiguration, there will be no practice.
For the NASCAR Cup Series, qualifying is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday. The session will air live on TruTV and on HBO Max.
Coverage of the Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart will begin with NASCAR Nation Pre-Race at 6 p.m. ET Sunday on TNT, TruTV and HBO Max. Race coverage will start at 7 p.m. ET with the green flag flying around 7:15 p.m. ET.
Cup teams will be supported by the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. Those teams are scheduled to qualify at 11 a.m. ET Saturday morning with live coverage on The CW App and website. Some CW affiliates may air the session live as well. Check your local listings.
Coverage of the Focused Health 250 will begin with NASCAR Countdown Live at 6:30 p.m. ET on The CW. Race coverage will start at 7 p.m. ET with the green flag at 7:10 p.m. ET.
Meanwhile, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will be at Connecticut’s Lime Rock Park near Lakeville, Connecticut for a standalone weekend. Teams pulled into the facility, recently ravaged by severe weather, Thursday night.
There will be one 50-minute practice Saturday morning starting at 9 a.m. ET, the earliest time allowed by local ordinance (seriously, engines are not allowed to be cranked until that time). Coverage of the session will begin on FS2, but will move to FS1 at 9:30 a.m. ET. Qualifying will follow shortly afterwards.
Coverage of the LiUNA! 150 will begin at 1 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1. The green flag will fly around 1:20 p.m. ET.
The Craftsman Truck Series will be supported by the ARCA Menards Series. In a change from last year, those teams are running a one-day show.
Teams are scheduled to have a one-hour practice session starting at 1 p.m. ET Friday. A 20-minute qualifying session will follow shortly afterwards. Neither session will be televised.
Coverage of the Lime Rock Park 100 will air live on FS2 starting at 4 p.m. ET Friday. The race should start around 4:10 p.m. ET.
What’s the Weather Looking Like?
Georgia this time of year is pretty steamy. That’s why this race is being run at night. Why Sunday night? That’s because more people would watch on a Sunday instead of a Saturday night.
The forecast for Friday, a work day at the track for O’Reilly Auto Parts Series teams, is for hot and humid weather with a 50% chance of thunderstorms. The high temperature will be around 93°.
Saturday will be a little cooler but still hot. It will have a mix of sun and clouds with another chance of thunderstorms with high temperatures around 90°. With the race starting after 7 p.m. ET, it’ll get cooler as the race goes on.
Sunday’s forecast includes a 90% chance of thunderstorms with a high around 85°. EchoPark Speedway has lights, but any rain will cause a significant delay.
At Lime Rock Park in Connecticut, Friday’s forecast is for mostly cloudy skies with high of 82°. There is a decent chance of thunderstorms as well.
The ARCA race will run rain or shine, but if there is lightning in the area, a full stop-down would be required. There will not be all that much time to work with knowing that the race is a 4 p.m. ET start. Local regulations require all engines to be shut off by 6 p.m. ET, so any delay after the race starts for lightning would heavily affect the schedule.
If that were to come to pass, it wouldn’t be the first time that a lightning delay ruined a Lime Rock race. In 2021, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Northeast Grand Prix was stopped after 89 of 160 minutes due to lightning and was ultimately flagged complete.
Saturday’s weather will be much better. The forecast is for sunny skies, less humidity and a high of 84°. Pretty much perfect, although it might be a little chilly in the morning and you’ll need a blanket for the hillsides unless you’re fine with a wet butt.
TV Ratings Check — Chicagoland
Sunday’s broadcast of the eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway attracted an audience of 2.1 million viewers combined between TNT, TruTV and HBO Max. It is unclear what the split is between the two outlets.
Regardless, this is up slightly from last year’s broadcast of the Grant Park 165, which had 2.06 million viewers. Not an apples-to-apples comparison, but what can we do.
Saturday night’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Cuervo 300 attracted an audience of 629,000 viewers on The CW. This is down 45% from last year’s The Loop 110 in Grant Park, but there’s good reason for that. The start of the race was delayed by 4.5 hours due to rain. What was supposed to be a 5:40 p.m. ET start ended up being 10:10 p.m. ET. The race then ended around 1 a.m. ET.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email 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 Frontstretch 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.
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