The Chase continues as teams continue to battle at the front of the field. We have NASCAR in Kansas, the ARCA Menards Series wrapping up its season and ARCA Menards Series West returning to a bullring. There is also Formula 1 in Azerbaijan and the FIA World Endurance Championship in Japan. It’s going to be a busy weekend.
NASCAR Kansas TV Schedule
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Practice: 5 p.m. ET Friday on FS2
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying: 6:05 p.m. ET Friday on FS2
- ARCA Menards Series Menards 150: 8 p.m. ET Friday on FS1
- NASCAR Cup Series Practice: 10 a.m. ET Saturday on TruTV/HBO Max
- NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying: 11:10 a.m. ET Saturday on TruTV/HBO Max
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series RaceToStopSuicide.com 200: 1 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1
- ARCA Menards Series West Madera 150: 10 p.m. ET Saturday on FLORacing
- NASCAR Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400: 3 p.m. ET Sunday on USA Network
NASCAR is traveling this weekend to Kansas Speedway for its second visit of the year. NASCAR Cup Series teams are scheduled to pull into the garage Friday, but no on-track activity is scheduled.
Practice will be held starting at 10 a.m. ET Saturday morning with live coverage on TruTV and HBO Max. Qualifying will follow at 11:10 a.m. ET.
Coverage of the Hollywood Casino 400 will start with USA Sports Pre-Race at 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday afternoon on USA Network. Race coverage will start at 3 p.m. ET with the green flag around 3:15 p.m. ET.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will serve as primary support to the Cup Series this weekend. Those teams are scheduled to load into the garage early Friday morning.
Practice begins at 5 p.m. ET Friday with live coverage on FS2. Qualifying will follow at 6:05 p.m. ET.
Coverage of the RaceToStopSuicide.com 200 will begin at 1 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon on FS1. The race should get underway around 1:20 p.m. ET.
The ARCA Menards Series will wrap up its 2026 season this weekend. Jake Bollman is in good position to take the title for Nitro Motorsports.
Kansas will be a one-day show for ARCA teams. Practice is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET Friday afternoon. Qualifying will follow shortly afterwards in a 20-minute open session. Neither session will be televised.
Coverage of the Menards 150 will air live on FS1 starting at 8 p.m. ET Friday night. The green flag will fly around 8:10 p.m. ET.
Outside of Kansas, ARCA Menards Series West teams will visit Madera, California for some bullring racing. It should be a rough and tumble night.
This will be a two-day show for the series, but the only official sessions will be Saturday. That said, there is a 150-minute optional open practice session for ARCA Menards Series West teams that starts at 10 p.m. ET Friday.
Official practice will be 45 minutes in length starting at 5:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Qualifying (single-car, two laps) will be at 7:15 p.m. ET. Neither session will be televised.
Coverage of the Madera 150 will begin at 10 p.m. ET Saturday on FLORacing. The green flag is scheduled to fly at 10:15 p.m. ET as part of a regular night of racing on the one-third of a mile oval.
What’s the Weather Looking Like?
Friday doesn’t look all that great in Kansas City. The forecast is currently for on-and-off showers, especially early in the day. When it isn’t raining, it will be cloudy. Temperatures will peak in the upper 60s, quite a bit below normal for this time of the year.
Saturday’s forecast is slightly better, but still not ideal. Temperatures will be warmer with a forecast high around 78°. However, there will still be a chance of thunderstorms during the day and will otherwise be cloudy. The Truck race is scheduled to start just after Noon local time, so it won’t be that warm when the green flag flies.
Sunday is the best day of the weekend. There will be partly sunny skies with a slight chance of showers and a high around 75-80°.
For ARCA West at Madera Speedway, the forecast is for sunny skies with a high of 92°. By the time the race goes green, it will be in the lower 80s. Pretty nice.
TV Ratings Check — Bristol
Saturday night’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race earned a .76 rating with 1.449 million viewers. This is down 4% in ratings and 6% in viewership from last year’s race, which earned a .79 rating with 1.536 million viewers. That rating more or less does not include the whole mess that occurred after the race. Reportedly, that viewership was up significantly from last year, but USA Network only had 14 minutes of post-race coverage on linear TV (the other 30 were on the USA Sports YouTube channel).
It should be noted that the race ran up again the Ole Miss-LSU college football game and all the stupidity that seems to surround Lane Kiffin these days. The less said about that, the better.
Friday night’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Food City 300 is somewhat unclear. One site that I checked that has primetime ratings indicated that the race had roughly 630,000 viewers on The CW. This would be down roughly 18% from last year’s race, which had 767,000 viewers. Another site indicated 738,000 viewers.
The only numbers I saw on Thursday night’s UNOH 250 presented by Ohio Logistics indicated that the race had roughly 399,000 viewers on FS1. If that is so, it is very good news. That would constitute a 44.5% increase in viewership over last year’s race, which had 276,000 viewers.
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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