A Cup dirt race appears to be a part of NASCAR’s future

A Cup race on dirt appears to be a part of the sport’s future, a NASCAR executive suggested while on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday.

“I think we’re definitely interested in continuing to look at dirt. Still kind of dissecting what took place this weekend, what we can do, where we could be, but all in all, I think the direction, as of today, would be certainly to remain on dirt,” Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR chief operating officer, told “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Fox, which aired Sunday night’s Cup race at Bristol, reported that the race had the highest ratings for any spring Bristol Cup race since 2016. Twice between 2017-21, the track’s spring race was moved to Monday because of rain, decreasing viewership. The track’s 2018 spring race was interrupted by rain.

Fox had 4.007 million viewers for Sunday’s race at Bristol, the first Cup race held on Easter since 1989. The Atlanta race had 4.003 million viewers on Fox. The race at Phoenix drew 3.991 million viewers on Fox. The Circuit of the Americas race had 3.73 million viewers on Fox. The Daytona 500 has drawn the largest audience this year at 8.87 million viewers on Fox. Riding that momentum, both the Auto Club and Las Vegas races, the next two races after the Daytona 500, drew 4.5 million viewers on Fox.

O’Donnell addressed the notion of racing on Easter again.

“For us, it’s what do we all want to do to grow the sport and expose it to more fans,” O’Donnell told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday morning before the viewership totals were released. “When you’re offered up the ability to be on an additional network race, you’ve got to take a hard look at that and that’s what we did. We expect that when the viewership numbers come out we’re going to be in a