NASCAR’s Abrupt Downfall to Fumble TV Crown Highlighting Gravity of Martinsville Frustration

It looks like the Netflix effect and early promising signs for a bump in TV ratings for the NASCAR Cup Series race have come to an end. The recent Cook Out 400 race at Martinsville Speedway was far from a short-track thriller. In fact, it was a stale effort, without any notable drama or storyline for the fans to follow, which is normally expected from such an event.

And it turns out that a mediocre output of the race is also reflected in the TV ratings, which have now taken a hit. Thanks to the three-wide photo finish at Atlanta, followed by a chaotic Bristol race, the TV viewership bumped and delivered better numbers compared to last season. Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway got 2.19 million views, which was far from the expected outcome. This was a huge dip considering the fact that the Cup races were reining supreme in TV numbers for the past few weeks.

Cook Out 400 fails to add to the positive trend of TV ratings for Cup races

NASCAR Cup Series races had been topping the charts for most viewed sporting events. Until last week, the average viewership for the race so far in the season was around 4 million. But after a relatively quiet afternoon of racing at Martinsville, the TV viewership has taken a huge hit, even failing to equal last season’s spring race at the venue.

Adam Stern shared the statistics and TV viewership via his X account, he wrote, “@FS1 got 2.191 million viewers for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville, nearly flat from 2.218 million viewers last year (the race @ChaseElliott returned from injury) despite immense competition from the @WFinalFour championship game, which got 18.7 million viewers.”

The race had pretty much nothing to talk about, besides the 1-2-3 finish by the Hendrick Motorsports drivers. The only interesting bit was William Byron’s tactical brilliance in grabbing the lead and coming to the pit early in stage 2 under green. Apart from that, there was nothing- no heated battles, no close contact racing, or an element of surprise.

One of the major talking points after the race was the limitations of the new short-track package. Drivers like Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin pointed out how NASCAR’s parity product hindered the short-track racing experience at Martinsville.

The newly rolled-out short track package hasn’t lived up to its billing

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Ever since NASCAR launched its new short-track package at Phoenix earlier this season, drivers have expressed their concerns with the new package. And how it has not made any positive impact on racing. Ahead of the Martinsville race, Kyle Busch aimed shots at NASCAR stating, “I didn’t think we could make it worse, but by golly, we did.”

Moreover, Denny Hamlin from JGR was adamant that NASCAR should take steps to put an end to parity racing. “One hundred percent parity has been achieved in NASCAR in the sense of everything is the same. You’ve made the drivers the same, you’ve made cars the same and now everyone runs the same speed. But now what, these are the unintended consequences that you have with parity, is no one is going to be able to pass,” Hamlin said via his podcast show.

For all the troubles and issues with the new short-track package, the quick fix, as suggested by most drivers, is an increase in horsepower. However, whether NASCAR will bend to the demands of the driver or stick with their style of racing remains to be seen.

Read More: NASCAR Fans Trash Lackluster Martinsville Show as All-Time Low Amidst Broadcast Blunders and Horsepower Demands