Nextel Cup finale gets big ratings
Circuit does its best ever going up against Sunday NFL
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NEW YORK - NASCAR’s Chase for the Championship paid off in high TV ratings for the season-ending race.
NBC’s coverage of the title-deciding Ford 400 earned a 5.6 overnight rating, the best in the race’s six-year history and the best performance ever for a NASCAR race against NFL football on Sunday.
The rating was 47 percent higher than last year’s 3.8 and up 24 percent from the previous high of 4.5 in 2002.
The previous high for a race going up against Sunday NFL action was a 4.7 overnight for last year’s EA Sports 500 at Talladega.
Kurt Busch overcame a broken wheel on Sunday to finish fifth and clinch the closest championship in NASCAR history. He won the Nextel Cup title by just eight points over Jimmie Johnson and 16 over Jeff Gordon.
This was the first year that NASCAR used the Chase for the Championship format, where the top 10 drivers with 10 races to go went into essentially a playoff for the remainder of the season.
Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets, covering about 70 percent of the United States. The rating is the percentage of all homes with TVs, whether or not they are in use.
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