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Bristol NASCAR race earned huge TV ratings; most-watched sports event over the weekend

Mike Organ, Nashville Tennessean
·2 min read
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FOX sports announced Friday that the NASCAR Cup Series Food City 500 held March 17 at Bristol Motor Speedway drew an average of 3.8 million viewers, which was an 11% increase compared to the fifth race in the 2023 season at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The increase is also 10% over last year’s Food City Dirt Race in April, which took place in prime time on Easter.

With a 3.8 rating the Food City 500 was the most-watched sports event of the weekend, which also included the NCAA Basketball Tournament selection show (3.1) and the Players Championship golf tournament in Florida (2.45).

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The race peaked at 4.57 million viewers from 6-6:15 p.m. CT. Some of the top-rated individual markets included Charlotte (4.9), Greensboro (4.3), Indianapolis (3.7), Norfolk, Va. (3.7) and Kansas City (2.9).

The race, won by Denny Hamlin, who held off teammate Martin Truex Jr. in heavy-lapped traffic, became a tire-management race. Hamlin said the race shifted into his comfort zone and that’s why he was able to take his fourth Bristol victory.“That’s what I grew up here doing in the short tracks in the Mid-Atlantic,” Hamlin told reporters after the race. “Once it became a tire management race I really liked our chances. We just had a great car, great team. The pit crew did a phenomenal job all day.”The structure resulted in a record-setting amount of passing. NASCAR officials confirmed early this week that in addition to Sunday’s announced records of 54 lead changes among 16 different drivers, there was also two more records in the loop data – 61 green flag passes for the lead and 3,589 overall passes. The previous records for those two marks in the Cup Series were 47 and 2,427 respectively.

Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on X @MikeOrganWriter.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Bristol NASCAR Cup race earned huge TV ratings