NASCAR’s Champions Weekend delivered almost all the down-to-the-wire tension the series could have asked for until Joey Logano hammered the other three members of the Championship 4 after the decisive final restart, but it didn’t prevent the season ending on another downward tick in TV audience.

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series finale on Sunday afternoon scored a 2.52 rating, averaging 4.2 million viewers on NBC. That’s down from a 2.83/4.7m last year, also on NBC’s broadcast network, and roughly in line with the trend throughout 2018. Prior to the Homestead race, SportsMediaWatch noted that, excluding rainouts, 26 of 31 Cup Series races this season had fallen to all-time or decade-plus lows.

NBC Sports says viewership of the race peaked in the final quarter hour of the race with 5.8 million average viewers, which it claims to be the largest peak audience for NASCAR since FOX’s April Talladega race (6.3m), and a 3.4 rating.

In total, viewership for NBC and NBCSN’s coverage of the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season (excluding rain-impacted Indianapolis) averaged 2.7 million viewers.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series title showdown at Homestead on Saturday averaged a 0.62/986,000 viewers on NBCSN. Last year, the race scored a 0.76/1.2m on NBCSN.