From what I'm able to tell after a couple minutes on Google, it appears that the race was supposed to be yesterday but got rained out. That explains why my Tivo mistakenly recorded it, but not why they were running promos for the shows that were replaced.

What's annoying is that we don't have much of a way to tell what they plan to do with the preempted episode. Will they just extend the season a week? Will they air it out of the time slot?

Anyway, I agree with your sentiments about NASCAR. It does not appeal to me. At MOST, I'd like to see about five minutes of a race, but only in person to experience what it's like being around the cars. When it's on TV, for some reason car racing looks at most 50% as fast as I know it really is. Cars going 190mph look like they're going around 80. It's the same when I've seen Indy car.