The final race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season, the Cook Out 400 in Richmond won by Austin Dillon, was held on a Saturday night. The race also featured a substantial ratings drop from the year prior.

Even a few weeks on, longtime driver and current FOX NASCAR analyst Kevin Harvick still can’t believe the decision. “Why do we ever race on a Saturday night? It makes no sense. Makes zero sense,” he said on his Harvick Happy Hour podcast.

Harvick is by no means the voice of a clear majoirty: Denny Hamlin pushed back Harvick’s sentiments in an interesting exchange on X with reporter Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.

Still, Harvick cited TV ratings as a major factor “Just look at the TV ratings when you get done. I know it’s football season, but the TV ratings are historically completely well known by everybody in the industry that it does not score ever, ever, ever, ever on a Saturday night.”

“We went from Saturday to Sunday at Richmond, and the TV numbers go up. We go from Sunday to Saturday, and the crowd goes up,” he added, admitting his confusion.

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“I’m more concerned about the TV ratings than I am how many people are sitting in the grandstands because that’s what makes it go around. I don’t care what anybody wants, Sunday races rate better than Saturday.”

In 2025, the race at Richmond saw a drop of almost a million viewers (37% of the audience) from 2024, down from 2.22 million to 1.39 million.

Gluck laid on the situation on X. “Richmond fans love seeing races there on Saturday night, but TV viewers still prefer Sundays. Richmond got 1.39 million viewers on Saturday night, down 37% from last year’s Richmond race (2.22 million), which was on a Sunday night.”

Hamlin pushed back. “Are we naïve enough to think a million more tune in 24 hours later?” One racing fan named Cindy responded, writing “I think at least half a million more would have tuned in considering last week’s race got 1.85mil and that was on a road course which usually gets less viewers).”

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Hamlin responded one final time (after a Gluck comment in between). “I was talking about Sunday,” he posted. “I think Cindy is correct in her concerns. Its my concern as well and I think the problem is much bigger than hitting the exact perfect time window every week.” For now, the debate rages on.