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Fire on Fridays: The Double-File Restart May Have Run Its Course

The double-file restart has been commonplace in NASCAR since the mid-2000s as a way of bunching up the leaders even tighter for more exciting restarts, especially as the checkered flag draws closer.

But in recent years, fans are increasingly upset with the number of overtime finishes and two-lap shootouts that stem from cautions that can usually be traced back to the restart. And with the implementation of the choose cone, restarts have gotten all the more chaotic.

Is it time to get rid of it? There are arguments for both sides.

See also
Stat Sheet: The Final 5% of a Race Might As Well Be a Different Race if There Are Multiple Restarts

People who believe NASCAR shouldn’t get rid of double-file restarts believe it creates more exciting finishes. It allows somebody to line up next to the leader and outduel them into turn 1 and steal the win. The leaders could tangle and allow someone completely unexpected to take the lead.

Alas, that last part is the exact reason some people believe it should be abolished.

As my colleague Stephen Stumpf mentioned in Stat Sheet, eight races of the 13 races this year have seen sprints of 10 laps or fewer, and more often than not the leader of the race before 10 to go has not won the race, largely in part due to crashes on the restart. The May 14 race at Darlington Raceway is perfect proof of that.

Ross Chastain and Kyle Larson were leading late in the race, and on a restart with less than 10 laps to go, Chastain, who restarted on the inside of Larson, washed up the track and wrecked himself and Larson, allowing Larson’s teammate William Byron to win the race. Byron, who ran in the top 10 most of the race, was not a contender for the lead much — that is, until the lead was placed in his lap.

Another example people will point to for the erasure of the double-file restart is this year’s race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. That race went into three overtimes because drivers, borderline intentionally, overdrove the hairpin turn 1 on the restart to gain spots. You know what they say: 20 tires are better than four.

Several cars got torn up unnecessarily in that race because the double-file restart caused drivers who restarted as far back as 15th to think they might have a shot to win the race if they overdrove the corner and used people up. And perhaps the worst part of all those overtimes was that there was no real surprise up front. Tyler Reddick, the clear favorite and most dominant car of the race, held off the field to win.

So not only did that race have a bunch of junked race cars due to desperation caused by the double-file restart, the outcome did not change at the front whatsoever. So why risk tearing up millions of dollars in equipment for the sake of potentially getting a surprise winner or that one driver finishing 10 positions above where they should have?

Besides that, IndyCar and Formula 1 do not utilize double-file restarts and both series still have the ability to produce exciting finishes — should there be a 10-lap or less sprint to the finish. NASCAR used to be the same way and even turned to double-file to put the lapped cars on the bottom as a way of trying to give those drivers a chance to unlap themselves, which would still create exciting racing for the leaders who couldn’t navigate the traffic that well.

On the superspeedway tracks, a single-file restart could help mitigate any sort of wreckfest that typically ensues within the final few laps of a superspeedway race. It could also give second-place an opportunity to plan a move anywhere on the track to pass the leader instead of just inside or outside, depending on where second restarts.

Most diehard NASCAR fans will recognize that the dominant car of the day should win the race — or finish top five at worst, accounting for a fading setup or something natural of that nature. But in a case like Darlington, the top three cars that led double-digit laps all wrecked on a restart and finished outside the top 20 (Martin Truex Jr. led the most laps, 145, and won stage one from the pole, but crashed out the restart before the Chastain-Larson incident, finishing a dismal 31st).

See also
NASCAR Mailbox: Addressing the Watermelon in the Room

It doesn’t help that there seems to be a growing lack of respect in the garage area, amplifying the poor judgment on late sprints to the finish. But it’s got to be frustrating for owners to have one of their cars who was running up front come back to the race shop and go straight to the dumpster.

NASCAR seemed to listen to the drivers at the beginning of the 2023 season when they asked to test a bigger restart zone. NASCAR did so for the first five races before returning to the original restart zone length it has now. Maybe something similar should be tried for the double-file restart.

Let’s test the single-file restart again for five races. Heck, we could even retry the double-file restart, where the leaders are up top and the lapped cars are on the bottom. But maybe it’s time to retry some things that the sport did in its past that seemed to work. If it doesn’t work, oh well, at least we tried.

But if it does work, the return to single-file restarts could save owners and drivers a ton of money and frustration, and a lot of teams can get the opportunity to get the finishes they deserved.

Frontstretch.com

Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter, among many other duties he takes on for the site. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight-choreographer-in-training in his free time.

You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.


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chastainfanbecausemoose

They will not return to single file restarts because it takes longer for the cars too file up with double restarts, and the evil devil, aka Fox sports, which has trash coverage, is greedy and wants too make money of Nascar, without even really caring about it.

Carl Bendele

Right on. No restarts. If time to let the race end 500 miles not 509.

Dawg

I would be in favor of single file restarts for road courses, & races like the Clash, & All Star races. If they insist on holding them on small tracks.

Marc

They definitely need to go at COTA and the road courses at Indy and Charlotte. At all three, cars fan out right after the start-finish line and then dive bomb turn 1 five or more wide in chaos. Those scrums are not racing, just an added burden for the shops to rebuild wrecked cars. Road course with longer front straights like Sonoma and Watkins Glen don’t have this issue.

Bill B

It’s all about entertainment and feeding that 30% of fans (just a BS guess, could be more) that just want to see a bunch of wrecks. People that want to watch a real race are fine with single file restarts and finishing under caution if that’s the way the ball bounces.

Dav_Daddy

Yeah let’s go back to putting mappers on the inside so instead of the leaders wrecking they can get wiped out by someone 3 laps? Brilliant! Anybody old enough to remember the days we did this along with racing back to the line are glad they are gone.

Next we can do away with the chase so the points leader can wrap it up with 2 months to go and ride around in 15th Every week. Boy those were exciting times!

Also don’t give me nonsense about how you can’t compare a present day champ to one from the old system. I’ll give that argument the time of day when you explain how we compare a champion from that system to one from the system before when they gave out points for miles completed? Or the one before that where instead of miles it was laps ran?

Thank God nobody listens these whiners. If they did NASCAR would already be dead and gone.

chastainfanbecausemoose

Nascar was more popular before the chase. They need a points system like indycar without the stupid stages. Indycar championship is always close. Also, the problem with nascar since Dale Sr death, bless his heart, is that there is too many rules and the car sucks. Most truly memorable finishes like 2004 darlington happened with the old gen 4 car. The cot sucked, the gen 6 sucked and the Next gen sucks on all tracks except intermediates.

chastainfanbecausemoose

I love Nascar but I question the leadership. Too many rules and they penalize too much money. They penalize truck series crew chiefs 5k, and they are making like 50k a year and probably have families. That is just wrong, make the poor people at the botton poorer but at the top aka cup series, they are poor too because too expensive to run a team.

chastainfanbecausemoose

To save the sport, they need people to go to the track. this converts them to lifelong fans instantly. I am a fan because I attended auto club a few times many years ago.

Chris B. Krebs

Single file or double file restarts doesn’t solve the bigger issue of that these cars just can’t pass anybody on the track. NASCAR has regulated that part of racing out of the design and setup of the cars. And they wonder why they are losing fans because the races are boring, mostly fuel mileage and pit strategy races. And then when they want to pass at the end of the race, the only way they can is to rub someone. Isn’t it curious that these multi-million dollar teams aren’t expressing more concern about their wrecking out and “wasting” something money on wrecked machines?
At least F1 and Indycars still present exciting action passing on the track without wrecking each other. NASCAR is unwatchable anymore.

John

First thing they need to do is stop counting caution laps from the race!!!!

John

They need to stop road courses to the super speedway Daytona,Charlotte,Indianapolis, Exc..

Matt

After two OT restarts, it should become single file

Dale Bowles

I think if anything they should do away with the green white checker should restart with 5 or even 10 laps to go

James McGinnis

So will they place the lap cars back on the inside like they use too! Because it just sounds to me like people are upset because either they lost money on the race or the driver they root for lost! And my point is this has and will happen with lapped cars as well! So I feel that the removal of the lap cars was more befitting than the removal of two wide restarts, better to have someone in contention for a top five or ten finish than to be took out of the race by a lap car! Only my opinion!