Inside The Garage: NASCAR’s New Stage Policy Aims To Condense Cautions

NASCAR didn’t get to see its new end-of-stage policy in action last weekend at Iowa Speedway. Stages ending naturally is a good thing. But NASCAR is now prepared to be flexible when it comes to the length of the stages. Responding to feedback from fans and criticism that caution periods are too long, NASCAR decided that, if a caution comes out with 10 laps or fewer left in the stage, the stage would end at the time of caution. That would eliminate either running extra laps under caution until the stage ends or running caution laps, then coming back to green for a lap (or two) dash to the stage finish and then throwing the caution again. “It stems from what happened in Indy, where we’ve seen all too often [that] the caution comes out before the stage break, we run a number of caution laps, trying to get back green. Stage break comes and we’re back to caution. Long periods of caution laps, not enough green-flag racing,” NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell said in a video to fans. “No more back-to-back cautions, no more elongated caution laps. More green-flag racing, more action for you, the fans.” The stage breaks are designed to bunch up the field and give the broadcaster four guaranteed times when they can run full-screen commercials under yellow. So at the end of the stage, laps are run under yellow for commercials, the pits are then open and then a couple more laps are run. Those final few laps allow for more commercials, as well as for NASCAR to get the lineup in order, so drivers can choose their lane on the restart. The choose rule added a lap to every caution on ovals when it was implemented several years ago. NASCAR potentially could move the “choose area” to the backstretch on ovals (like it does on road courses where it is often near the end of the lap) in hopes of potentially eliminating another full caution lap. Obviously, the balance of having the stage breaks and getting back to racing can be frustrating. “It sucks for all of us when you get a caution with five to go to the end of the stage and they’re going to try to do a one-lap shootout and then it takes 15 minutes [for the stage break]. Like just roll on with it,” two-time Cup champion Kyle Larson told The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck and others at Iowa Speedway. “This is a step in the right direction.” Another former Cup champion, Ryan Blaney, also liked the new rule. “That’s no fun for anybody,” Blaney said about the extra laps under caution when the stage break comes right after another caution during a news conference. “That’s no fun for anybody watching. That’s not fun for us either. … That’s progress on that side and trying to limit the time of caution, time of yellow and things like that.” Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar thinks it could impact strategy. “Ultimately, [it will] just make the race not predictable and hopefully, it just allows for mistakes on the box,” Hocevar said at a news conference at Iowa. “I feel like mistakes from either the box or the car tend to kind of always make the racing better.  It’s good. I think it’s an improvement. It’s less caution laps, which is good.” Ryan Preece said he’s all for it but did see some irony in the decision. “It seems like a lot of fans are talking about more green-flag racing, and we put stage breaks in to break the races up because everybody was talking about the long green-flag runs,” Preece said during an Iowa news conference. “Me, personally, this will never happen, but I wish there were no stages and we’d race.” If the caution does impact the length of a stage, the length of the ensuing stage would change as far as distance and will still end at the original designated lap. For instance, if the stages are designed to end on Lap 50 and Lap 100 and the race ends on Lap 200 and the caution comes out on Lap 45, the second stage would still end at Lap 100 (and not Lap 95) and would end up being 55 laps in length. O’Donnell credited fans for being vocal about wanting change. “You helped push this,” O’Donnell said. “Your passion for the sport has helped us make changes more quickly.” In The News — Haas Factory Team added Dean Thompson to its O’Reilly Series roster as part of a multiyear deal. HFT will increase to three cars for O’Reilly with the drivers of the other two cars to be announced. The organization’s current drivers are Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer. Thompson has spent the last couple of years at Sam Hunt Racing. — Joe Gibbs Racing announced that William Sawalich has signed a contract extension to continue driving in the O’Reilly Series for the organization. — Iowa Speedway will repave its entire seventh-eighths-mile racing oval during the offseason. Clinching Drivers No drivers in Cup clinched a spot in the Chase at Iowa, but Sammy Smith did clinch a spot in the O’Reilly Series postseason. Social Spotlight They Said It “Without sounding salty, I don’t think I would have won the race anyway, but I think it’s kind of time for us as a series to grow up and not have the lapped car situation. I think it makes us all look stupid.”— Felix Rosenqvist on INDYCAR not ordering lapped cars to move over for the leaders