FOX Sports’ broadcast of the Aaron’s 499 NASCAR Sprint Cup race drew a 4.5/11 overnight rating on FOX, down 14 percent from last year, Even so, the broadcast of the race, which featured a highlight-reel finish as Carl Edwards flew into the fence on the run to the checkered flag, earned the highest overnight rating of the weekend for a sporting event, edging two NBA basketball games on ABC.

Meanwhile, the IndyCar Series was unable to sustain the momentum of double-digit growth for its cable-casts on Versus. The Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway earned a 0.15 rating nationally (0.3 share, 171,000 households), well down from the 0.5 (388,864 households) scored by the previous week’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, and down 80 percent from last year’s 0.74 rating for the Kansas event on ESPN2, although that race was the beneficiary of a promotional bump stemming from Danica Patrick’s first Indy car win at Motegi, Japan one week earlier.