What channel is the NASCAR race on today? What time does the NASCAR race start? These are the questions that plague race fans every Sunday, when each Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race will be on either NBC or NBCSN for the second half of the 2019 season with differing start times.
As for Sunday's Camping World 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, the Cup Series' only visit to Chicago all season, the channel that will broadcast the race is NBCSN. The start time for the race at Chicagoland is 3 p.m. ET, and the start time for the pre-race show on NBCSN is 2:30 p.m. ET.
MORE: Watch the Chicagoland race live with fuboTV (7-day trial)
The 3 p.m. ET start time for Sunday's Camping World 400 at Chicagoland Speedway is the third such start time this season (Texas and Sonoma were the others). As for the TV channel, the NASCAR Cup Series is on NBCSN for the first time this season. (Fox's portion of the broadcast schedule ended last week.) As part of NBC's TV deal with NASCAR for the 2019 season, NBC is slated to show seven of the final 20 races of the season, with the other 13 scheduled to be shown on NBCSN.
Sunday's Camping World 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, which will consist of three stages (80 laps, 80 laps, 107 laps), is the 18th race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule (17th when not counting the All-Star Race).
Chicagoland Speedway, located southwest of Chicago in Joliet, Ill., is a 1.5-mile oval that features 18-degree banking in the turns, 11-degree banking in the tri-oval and five-degree banking on the backstretch. The wide (and slick when hot) race track is ripe for good racing.
Below is all the info you need regarding how to watch Sunday's NASCAR race at Chicagoland.
What channel is NASCAR on today? Time, TV for Chicagoland race
- Race: Camping World 400 at Chicagoland Speedway
- Date: Sunday, June 30
- Start time: 3 p.m. ET
- TV channel: NBCSN
- Live stream: fuboTV
- Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
The Camping World 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday will be the first of 13 races this season to be shown on NBCSN. The network's broadcast crew consists of Rick Allen, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte in the booth, with Marty Snider, Dave Burns, Kelli Stavast and Parker Kligerman reporting from pit road.
In addition to the TV coverage on NBCSN, Sunday's race at Chicagoland is available via live stream through fuboTV. New fuboTV users can sign up with a seven-day free trial.
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In a development that shocks nobody, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. are again being tabbed as two of the favorites to win Sunday's race. They are two of four multiple-time Chicagoland winners in the field this weekend (Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick being the others) and are the two hottest drivers in the series. Busch won this race last year, and Truex won it in 2016 and '17.
Busch, who is one point behind Cup Series standings leader Joey Logano, has a series-best 15 top-10 finishes in 16 races in 2019, including top-five finishes in his last four races. And now he goes to one of his best tracks; including his win last season, Busch has six top-10 finishes in the last seven races at Chicagoland.
"Back when we first started racing (at Chicagoland) in the summer, it was a night race," Busch explained this week. "So with a hot track now and the surface worn out more now, it certainly tends to play to my strengths, and as we saw last year, we can put on a really good race with the heat, combined with the worn-out surface."
MORE: Full 2019 NASCAR Cup Series schedule
As for Truex, aka "Mile and a Half Martin," Sunday offers a welcome return to an oval even after his road-course win at Sonoma last week. Of Truex's five career top-five finishes at Chicagoland, three have come in the last three races, including his pair of wins in 2016 and '17.
"I think JGR, all of our cars are running good at places throughout the season, but for us personally on the 19, the last couple of mile-and-a-halves we've really turned a corner," Truex said this week. "Michigan was a great run for us, Charlotte obviously, winning there was big.
"We started out the year kind of searching a bit on the mile-and-a-halves and the bigger tracks with the 550-horsepower package. For us, I definitely feel like we’ve learned a lot the past month and half and really turned a corner there. That has given us a lot of confidence and we feel like Chicago will be a good race for us."
Among the favorites to spoil the Busch-Truex party at Chicagoland are their rivals from Team Penske, Logano and Keselowski. Stewart-Haas Racing's Kevin Harvick, who is still searching for his first win this season, also has a strong history at the track; he has more career top-five finishes (10) in Chicago than anybody in the field.