NASCAR’s midweek race experiment: One and done?

The coronavirus pandemic gave us an opportunity to see midweek races in the NASCAR Cup Series. Are these races something we want to see moving forward?

Since NASCAR came back following the 10-week hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic, we have seen three races held on either Wednesday or Thursday, with one more coming up at Kansas Speedway on Thursday, July 23.

These three races at Darlington Raceway, Charlotte Motor Speedway and Martinsville Speedway were nothing short of entertaining and kept NASCAR on schedule for a full 36-race season despite the stoppage. But the topic of holding midweek races in future seasons has once again dominated the NASCAR scene.

The happy accidental “experiment” had some stable results when you look at the ratings provided by Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal:

1. Toyota 500 at Darlington Raceway (Wednesday, May 20) – 2.087 million viewers and a 1.22 rating for a rain-impacted race, and Fox Sports 1 was number one during prime time against the other major sports networks.
2. Alsco Uniforms 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (Thursday, May 28) – 1.5 million viewers and a 0.91 rating for another rain-impacted race, and Fox Sports 1 was still number one in prime time among the sports channels.
3. Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway (Wednesday, June 10) – A 1.14 rating, so if earlier ratings are something to go by, estimates range from 1.6 million to 1.9 million viewers.

These ratings sound steady and average in terms of what a typical NASCAR race on a Sunday gets. Who knows what can happen when you’re at the right place at the right time on a Wednesday night during prime time?

More from NASCAR

• NASCAR Cup Series: New team set to compete in 2024
• NASCAR: Will Kevin Harvick’s major record ever be broken?
• NASCAR: Surprising name continuously linked to new seat
• NASCAR driver at risk of missing the Daytona 500?
• NASCAR set for rare appearance last seen 13 years ago

To me, the only way you can hold a midweek race and make it pay off is if you hold in the night time. I don’t believe there is much to be gained from holding a race on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon unless NASCAR wants to compete with The Young and the Restless or Ellen.

But the biggest problem with midweek races is logistics. If the race gets rained out, how do you go about rescheduling the race when teams have to send their cars back to the shop and get the next ones loaded up and out the door for Sunday? This could potentially leave just one day to get the cars set up for practice. This is the one thing that could hinder the opportunity to regularly see midweek races moving forward.

I do want to see this experiment continue. Let’s have a small three or four-race stretch held on weekends and weekdays, and let’s get more data on a topic that continues to intrigue the fanbase, especially once other sports are back as well.

So far, this experiment has shown positive results. But the one big outlier continues to not be seen. NASCAR’s luck will run out eventually, and they’ll be left in between a rock and a hard place when it comes to scheduling. How they handle it will tell us if we will see more midweek races in the future.