How to Watch Coca-Cola 600 on Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video doesn’t intend to reinvent the wheel when it airs the first exclusively streaming NASCAR race in the U.S.

Recognizable faces—headlined by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Carl Edwards—will call Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, with plans to keep the spotlight on the racing. Amazon has a seven-year deal with NASCAR, airing five Cup Series events each season. There’s plenty of time to tinker down the road. Yet, the company can’t help but innovate.

“There’s a high level of respect of the history of NASCAR and the way this sport is presented,” race caller Adam Alexander said this week. “While there are tremendous new ideas that will come in through technology, and those are things that you will see unfold this weekend, I would say that we’re not going to get too far away from the foundation of what makes a NASCAR broadcast what it is.”

Amazon has committed to side-by-side rather than full-screen commercial breaks during active racing, something that other NASCAR broadcasters do for some but not all races. Pre- and post-race coverage will also feature ads split up by audience demographic—such that young, city-based viewers could hypothetically see a slightly different commercial than parents in rural locales—as well as interactive spots.

Fans joining late will be able to watch a data-driven compilation of race highlights and flag changes on demand. And without a set end time on its broadcasts, post-race conversations could extend for up to an hour if the action warrants it.

“Being able to sit back and just spend time talking about the day that we just had, the race that we just saw … I think that’s going to be a big part of our identity,” senior coordinating producer Alex Strand said. “That’s something that’s unique, that we have the ability to do as a streamer. We don’t have to get off air for anything else.”

Edwards will be joined by current Cup Series driver Corey Lajoie and broadcaster Danielle Trotta on pre- and post-race coverage. Alexander will call the race alongside Earnhardt Jr. and former crew chief Steve Letarte, with Trevor Bayne, Kim Coon and Marty Snider reporting from pit road.

On Thursday Night Football, Prime Video employs advanced analytics to simplify hidden aspects of football, from blitz predictions to fourth-down decision making. Strand foresees Prime Video similarly educating NASCAR fans, though not every bell and whistle will be unveiled this weekend. For one, Letarte discussed the possibility of displaying estimated fuel gauge information during the race, indicating how much further a driver can likely go before needing to pit.

“I shouldn’t say this because I’m an announcer, but my goal of racing is that the announcers aren’t necessary for the watching experience,” Letarte said. “On every sport you gotta have the score and the time on the screen. It’s very complicated in NASCAR, but I think every year we get better at showing more on the screen for the fan to digest.”

Of course, none of that will matter for fans who don’t have access to Prime or don’t know where to find Sunday’s action. NASCAR released a new promo for the event earlier this week, building on cross-promotion with other broadcasters. During its media negotiation window, NASCAR surveyed its fans and found that more of them subscribed to Amazon Prime as of 2023 and 2024 than subscribed to cable. For those without the service, an available 30-day free trial will extend past Amazon’s final 2025 race from Pocono Raceway on June 22.

“Now it’s more of an education around, OK, we’re shifting from Fox and FS1 to Amazon Prime,” NASCAR EVP and chief media and revenue officer Brian Herbst said in an interview. “You just need to fire up the app and go there on Sunday.”

And execs have already seen ratings increases for its CW and FS1 slates so far this year as fans find stock car racing wherever it’s airing. 

Edwards, who retired to central Missouri in 2017, recalled telling a neighbor about his new gig. “He said, ‘Hey, you’re doing some sort of TV thing!’ And I was thinking, you know, this guy’s 85 years old, and I’m gonna have to explain this to him,” Edwards said.

So Edwards began to walk through the modern world of sports broadcasting—only to be quickly interrupted.

“I started,” Edwards said, “and he’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I got Prime! I’ll be watching.’”

The Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte Motor Speedway starts at 6 p.m. ET Sunday.