VEGAS NASCAR RACE SCORES HIGHEST RATING

Sunday’s NASCAR race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway history drew the highest rating in the track's history.

The 11th annual event drew a 7.1 final national rating, according to Nielsen Media Research. The previous high was 7.0 in 2002.

The speedway announced today that it was also the fifth most-watched non-Daytona race in NASCAR history. The race’s rating increased nearly 13 percent from last year’s 6.3. The UAW-Dodge 400 was the highest-rated NASCAR event, excluding the Daytona 500, in two years. This was the eighth consecutive year the event was televised by FOX Sports.

The race was the highest-rated sporting event of the weekend. It easily outdistanced other events such as the NBA’s Lakers-Magic (3.4) and Bulls-Cavaliers (2.3) games, the PGA Tour’s Honda Classic (2.4) and the NCAA’s Tennessee-Kentucky (1.9) and Duke-N.C. State (1.6) men’s basketball games.