Rained out NASCAR trounces Tiger, Shaq.

Tiger Woods and Shaquille O'Neal were no match for a rained out NASCAR race on Sunday.

Despite not starting until just after 6:00 PM on the East Coast (2 1/2 hours into the FOX coverage window), and despite only having 87 laps run before the race was red-flagged, the Auto Club 500 drew a 6.1/10 overnight on FOX Sunday afternoon, down only 1% from last year, and on par with the ratings for marquee sporting events like the Pro Bowl, golf's U.S. Open and PGA Championships, and the NBA Finals.

The 6.1 overnight trounced the numbers for the two other major events on Sunday. The rained out race beat Tiger Woods' victory in the WGC Accenture Match Play Championships by 74%, and surpassed Shaquille O'Neal's third game with the Phoenix Suns by 154%. The WGC event and the NBA on ABC combined for a 5.9 rating -- 3% lower than the 6.1 for NASCAR.

While NASCAR usually rules the ratings during the spring, with some races even beating NCAA Tournament broadcasts on CBS, having a rained out race draw a bigger audience than Tiger Woods and Shaquille O'Neal combined is something to brag about.

The race did not just destroy its sports competition. Fox finished #2 for the night, behind ABC's coverage of The Oscars, as the prime-time portion of the abbreviated race drew 10.7 million viewers, with a 4.0/10 rating among adults 18-49. Excluding Oscars-related programming, the Auto Club 500 was the most watched event of the night.