The 2013 ARCA television schedule will open on SPEED on Saturday, February 16. Live flag-to-flag coverage of ARCA's 50th consecutive annual event at the world-renowned Daytona International Speedway will begin at 4:30 p.m.
Other events scheduled for live and/or same-day SPEED coverage in 2013 include races at Talladega Superspeedway on May 3; Toledo Speedway on May 19;Pocono Raceway on June 8 and August 2; Michigan International Speedway on June 14; Chicagoland Speedway on July 21; Iowa Speedway on September 7; Kentucky Speedway on September 20; and the season finale at Kansas Speedway on October 4.
ARCA's relationship with SPEED reaches back to April 20, 1997, when the network (then Speedvision) covered the ARCA Racing Series race at Indiana's Salem Speedway. Since then, SPEED has aired 198 ARCA Racing Series events.
Year-over-year broadcast ratings spiked in 2012, highlighted by substantial improvements in key demographics. The full season of the ARCA Racing Series finished up +22 percent with households (0.44 vs. 0.36), one tenth or +31 percent with males 35-54 (0.42 vs. 0.32), and +50 percent with males 18-49 (0.24 vs. 0.16) from 2011.
Sweetening the solid story with males 18-49, nine out of 10 races were up year-to-year during the season. Additionally, this was the second most-watched season of ARCA in terms of total viewers since SPEED began subscribing to ratings in 2002 (P2+ impressions), averaging 464,000 viewers for the season; the most-watched season was in 2010 with 608,000 viewers, featuring Danica Patrick's stock car debut). Excluding the February Daytona race, which was down year-over-year, it was the most-watched season of ARCA on SPEED since the network began subscribing to ratings in 2002 with 363,000 total viewers.
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards has crowned 30 ARCA national champions in 60 seasons since 1953, and has toured over 200 race tracks in 26 states since its inception. The series has tested the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, visiting tracks ranging from 0.375 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as a left- and right-turn road course in its most recent season.
Founded by John and Mildred Marcum in 1953 in Toledo, Ohio, the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) is recognized among the leading sanctioning bodies in the country. Having completed its sixth decade after hundreds of thousands of miles of racing, ARCA administers over 100 race events each season in four professional touring series - the ARCA Racing Series, the ARCA CRA Super Series, the ARCA Truck Series, and new in 2013, the ARCA Midwest Tour - in addition to local weekly events at Ohio's Toledo Speedway and Michigan's Flat Rock Speedway.
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