NASCAR's Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond draws over 3 million viewers on Easter Sunday
The ratings are in for the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway, which was run on Easter Sunday evening for the NASCAR Cup Series.
According to FOX via Adam Stern of the Sports Business Journal, the event drew 3.310 million viewers around the world. However, Stern noted there’s no direct comparison between this year’s race and 2023’s iteration, as the latter was on FS1.
Continuing, Stern added that the 2022 spring race at Richmond, which was on FOX, drew 3.958 million viewers, but it wasn’t on Easter Sunday, and didn’t have to contend with Major League Baseball’s opening weekend.
“@FoxTV got 3.310 million viewers for Sunday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond; last year’s spring race was on FS1 so there’s no direct YOY comparison,” Stern posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The 2022 spring event was on Fox and that race drew 3.958 million”
Alas, the fans that tuned into Sunday’s race were gifted a fascinating event, filled with fantastic racing and controversy to boot. We’ll see if there’s a repeat of history this weekend at Martinsville, and if the ratings remain strong for NASCAR in 2024.
Denny Hamlin concedes he left a ‘few feet early’ on race-winning restart at Richmond
Denny Hamlin picked up career-win No. 53 and his second of the season in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway, though it didn’t come without some controversy.
During the final restart of the race in overtime, in which Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. sat on the front row, Truex accused Hamlin of leaving the restart zone early. Though NASCAR reviewed the restart and said it was “awful close,” they deemed it to be a good restart.
Hamlin, speaking on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast on Monday, conceded that he “went pretty early in the zone.”
“I went pretty early in the zone,” Hamlin said. “… It’s a restart zone. Certainly, if you fire in a zone that they know you’re going to fire in, let’s not even say zone — in a spot — if they know you’re going to fire in a spot, they can actually fire before you. I concede that on TV, it looks worse than what it felt like in the car. Now, a lot of the reason of that is that when I’m restarting the race, I’m not looking at the flagman, I’m not looking at my dash, I’m not looking at anything. All I’m looking at is my mirror and my side peripheral.”
Joey Logano sat P3 for the restart. Hamlin said Logano “dictated the restart” since he was laying back coming out of Turn 4. Hamlin didn’t want to give up his leader advantage and took off as a result.