By 5 GOATs,Brian Jones
Copyright yardbarker
NASCAR had its Cup Series Playoff race at Bristol on Saturday night, and the ratings for the event have been revealed. Per Adam Stern of the Sports Business Journal, the race, which aired on the USA Network on Saturday night, got a 0.79 rating and 1.536 million viewers. Those numbers are down from the same event last year receiving a 0.98 rating and 1.868 million viewers.
Stern then pointed out that this year’s numbers were still good enough to make NASCAR the No. 2 sport on the weekend cable after football. As the Bristol race was going on, multile college football games were happening on different cable and broadcast channels.
NASCAR fans saw Christopher Bell win the Bristol race and clinch a spot in the second round of the playoffs. The event also saw four drivers eliminated from the playoffs, as Alex Bowman, Shane van Gisbergen, Austin Dillon and Josh Berry fell below the cut line.
Christopher Bell reacts to winning NASCAR playoff race at Bristol
For Bell, the victory was big since he had not won a race since Phoenix in March. During his post-race press conference, Bell talked about when he knew that Saturday’s race was going to be about tire wear.
“I keyed up on the radio, I think it was probably lap 20, 25. I had a couple weird moments inside the car that caught me off guard,” Bell said. “So whenever the track is behaving normally and it’s taking rubber, you can slide the car around, and it just feels different.
“I had a really big slip lap 1 or 2, and then a couple laps — lap 20, 30 into the run, I’m like, man, I’m losing grip in a hurry here, and I keyed up and I said, I think we might have tire issues, and then I just saw the land mine of marbles up the racetrack, and that’s all she wrote. I thought NASCAR did a phenomenal job officiating the race this week compared to the last time or the first time that it happened and the last time it happened.”
NASCAR will be back in action on Sunday (Sep. 21) for the Mobil 1 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The race will kick off the Round of 12 of the playoffs and will air on USA at 2 p.m. ET.
