NASCAR on TV This Week: Sept. 5 – 8

The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs get underway this weekend. However, the schedule crafters have concocted a nasty start to the Round of 16. The playoffs will start with an ultra-stressful superspeedway race in Georgia.

Where to Watch NASCAR This Weekend

This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series will make their second visit of the year to Atlanta Motor Speedway, this time for the Quaker State 400, a race formerly run at Kentucky Speedway. Unlike next year, this race will be held during the daytime.

Since this is a superspeedway-style race, there will be no practice. Qualifying is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET with live coverage on USA Network.

Coverage of the Quaker State 400 will start with Countdown to Green at 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday on USA Network. Race coverage will start at 3 p.m. ET with the green flag around 3:10 p.m. ET.

Weather for Sunday looks pretty good. There will be sunny skies with a high around 80° and a low chance of precipitation. It could still be humid, though.

The NASCAR Cup Series will be supported by the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Coverage of qualifying will air live on USA Network starting at 11 a.m. ET Saturday.

Coverage of the Focused Health 250 will start with Countdown to Green at 2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network. Race coverage will start at 3 p.m. ET with the green flag around 3:10 p.m. ET.

The weather forecast is similar Saturday for Xfinity fans to Sunday’s Cup broadcast. It’ll be a couple of degrees warmer, though. The bad day of the weekend will be Friday, when the facility will deal with tropical rain showers. It’ll make inspection day pretty terrible, but there isn’t any on-track activity scheduled.

Also, remember that the races this weekend will have no full screen commercial breaks during green-flag racing. This will be the second of three race weekends where this will apply.

Finally, NASCAR is launching a new TV show tonight, NASCAR Inside the Playoffs, that will preview each of the upcoming playoff races for the NASCAR Cup Series. The show will air on Thursday nights for the remainder of the season at 7 p.m. ET on TruTV. A simulcast of the show will air on Max’s B/R Sports Add-On.

TV Ratings Check — Darlington

Unfortunately, as of this writing, TV ratings have not been made available from last weekend at Darlington. When or if they are released, we will update this column.