The 2026 Daytona 500 weekend marked the 68th running of the Great American Race. Won by Tyler Reddick for 23XI Racing and Toyota, the 500 becomes the second crown jewel victory for the team in as many years, and the ninth career win for Tyler. With that win, he becomes only the second driver to win the Great American Race for Toyota.
The weekend got its start Friday night with Chandler Smith winning the Craftsman Truck Series opener, while the most dominant superspeedway driver in O’Reilly Auto Parts Series history, Austin Hill, scored yet another win at Daytona on Saturday.
Friday, Craftsman Truck Series
The Craftsman Truck Series had MAJOR star power that helped propel them to a 37% increase over 2025’s season opener.
FOX Sports 1 had 1.387 million viewers on Friday evening, with peak viewership hitting 1.604 million between 9:45 and 10:00 pm ET
Saturday, O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drew 1.812 million viewers, peaking at 2.321 million. 1.8 million matches near perfectly the numbers from 2025 on the CW.
(TV Ratings for Saturday’s ARCA Menards Series race at Daytona has not been released by FOX)
Sunday, Cup Series Daytona 500
The Daytona 500 peaked at 9.154 million viewers between 5:30 and 5:45 p.m. ET. The race got to 7.489 million viewers on Sunday, even outscoring the Olympics. The nearly 7.5 million number is an 11% ratings jump over the 2025 Daytona 500.
Image Credit: Patrick Vallely
You neglected to mention that last year’s 500 (and 2024’s as well) was affected by weather, which suppressed viewership. The inconvenient truth is that Sunday’s race had the lowest viewership numbers of an 500 not affected by weather…ever (well, since 1979, anyway). Don’t worry, you’re not alone in neglecting to add requisite context; FOX Sports was also intentionally negligent.