NASCAR TV Schedule This Weekend: March 22 – 24 (2024)

With Spring officially underway now, the racing season continues to heat up. NASCAR teams will take on their first road course of the year, while INDYCAR and Formula 1 are back in action.

Where to Watch NASCAR This Weekend

All three of NASCAR’s National-level series will be at Circuit of the Americas in Elroy, Tex. near Austin this weekend. Saturday will be a doubleheader, while the big show is Sunday.

Coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Texas Grand Prix will start with NASCAR RaceDay at 2 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. NASCAR RaceDay will move to FOX at 3 p.m. ET. Race coverage will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET with the green flag around 3:50 p.m. ET.

Saturday will be a day in which you can turn your TV to FS1, put the remote control down on your coffee table and keep it there for the day. Following Cup qualifying will be the Xpel 225k for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Coverage of that will start with NASCAR RaceDay – NCTS Edition at 12:30 p.m. ET on FS1. Race coverage will start at 1:30 p.m. ET with the green flag around 1:40 p.m. ET.

Coverage of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Focused Health 250k will start with NASCAR RaceDay – Xfinity Edition at 4 p.m. ET. If significant shenanigans occur during the Truck race, this show may be delayed. Race coverage is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. ET with the green flag around 5:15 p.m. ET.

Where to Watch Other Racing Series This Weekend

Outside of Austin, the NTT IndyCar Series will be at The Thermal Club in Thermal, Calif. for the $1 Million Challenge. There will be no pre-race coverage on TV Sunday afternoon.

Coverage of the $1 Million Challenge will start at 12:30 p.m. ET Sunday on NBC. That coverage will more or less feed into the first heat. And yes, that start time means that the first heat will start shortly after 9:30 a.m. local time.

Formula 1 is at Albert Park in Melbourne for the Grand Prix of Australia. For this weekend, there are two different issues that are going to cause problems with the schedule. One is the location as Melbourne is 15 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone. The other is that is the ESPN family of networks is the exclusive home for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Saturday is the second day of the first round, meaning that there will be 16 games spread between ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS and ESPNU.

As a result, things will move around a lot. Coverage of the Grand Prix of Australia will start with Formula 1: Grand Prix Sunday. It will begin at 10:30 p.m. ET, but will air exclusively on ESPN+ at first. The show will be joined in progress at 11 p.m. ET on ESPNEWS. The show will then be simulcast on ESPN2 starting at 11:30 p.m. ET. That simulcast assumes that the California Baptist-UCLA game ends on time.

Race coverage will start at 11:55 p.m. ET on ESPN2. The formation lap will start at Midnight ET sharp. If the California Baptist-UCLA game runs extremely long, then the race itself would likely start on ESPNEWS.

ARCA Menards Series East teams will start their 2024 season Saturday night at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla. Coverage of the Pensacola 150 is scheduled to stream at 8:20 p.m. ET on FLORacing.com.

Finally, the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series will spend this weekend in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. First up is the Bluebonnet Showdown at Big O Speedway in Ennis, Tex., southeast of Dallas. Coverage from Ennis will begin at 7:15 p.m. ET Friday night on DirtVision.

On Saturday night, the series moves an hour to the northwest to Kennedale Speedway Park south of Fort Worth for the Cowtown Roundup. Coverage from Kennedale will start at 7:15 p.m. ET on DirtVision.

The series was originally supposed to race at Kennedale two weeks ago, but both races were rained out. This particular race was originally scheduled to be held at Lawton Speedway in Oklahoma, but was shifted to Kennedale due to a fire at Lawton Speedway that destroyed the track’s press box and some seating.

For more broadcasts from around the world, be sure to check out our TV schedule page for listings from broadcast TV, cable/satellite networks, FAST channels and more.

NASCAR TV Ratings Check — Bristol

Last weekend’s action in Bristol will be remembered for quite a while. Ratings-wise, it was more of a mixed bag.

Sunday’s Food City 500 earned a 2.1 Nielsen rating with 3.809 million viewers. This is up 11.7% from last year as the race attracted 359,000 more viewers. However, it should be noted that the race was not on the same weekend as last year. Last year, the then-Food City Dirt Race was held on Easter night.

The equivalent weekend last year was Atlanta. The broadcast is up .15 in the ratings and 387,000 viewers from that broadcast.

On the other hand, Saturday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol earned a .47 rating with 808,000 viewers. This is down 23% from last year’s race, which drew a .61 rating and 1.057 million viewers. However, it is all but flat with Atlanta on the same weekend last year (.48 rating, 807,000 viewers).