If you haven’t been keeping track, Sunday’s (Sept. 8) Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway was the 11th race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season to end in overtime.
If it sounds like a lot, it is.
Since the start of the Gen 6 era in 2013, the series has seen roughly six to 10 overtime finishes each year, with a few exceptions.
| Year | Overtime Finishes |
| 2013 | 5 |
| 2014 | 7 |
| 2015 | 8 |
| 2016 | 10 |
| 2017 | 11 |
| 2018 | 8 |
| 2019 | 6 |
| 2020 | 9 |
| 2021 | 6 |
| 2022 | 8 |
| 2023 | 10 |
| 2024 | 11* (through 27 races) |
This year is one of those exceptions, and in the 20 years since overtime’s implementation at the Cup level, 2024 joins 2017 as the only two seasons to feature at least 11 overtime finishes.
It’s only gotten more bizarre as the season’s progressed. A summer stretch between the Brickyard 400 and the 400-mile race at Daytona International Speedway marked the first time the series has seen four consecutive overtime finishes, and of the last 10 Cup races, only two of them have ended at the scheduled distance.
Two.
- New Hampshire: Overtime
- Nashville: Overtime (x5)
- Chicago: Darkness Shortened
- Pocono: Scheduled Distance
- Indianapolis: Overtime (x2)
- Richmond: Overtime
- Michigan: Overtime (x2)
- Daytona: Overtime
- Darlington: Scheduled Distance
- Atlanta: Overtime
Keep in mind that there are still nine races to go. And with another superspeedway in Talladega Superspeedway a few weeks away, it’s all but a guarantee that 2024 will break the record.
The question isn’t whether the record will be broken, but rather by how much. Will we end the season with 12 overtime finishes? Thirteen? Fifteen? Eighteen?
Twenty?
In some ways, it feels like a cruel joke.
There’s a 100-plus lap green-flag run in the final stage? Boom, some mid-pack car crashes with two to go to bring out a yellow. There’s a rash of late cautions in the closing stages of the race? Another car wrecks for good measure to send the race into extra time. Have an overtime restart where the entire pack is running low on fuel? We’ll just keep having cars wrecking, only to bring out more yellows and run everyone’s fuel tanks dry.
Even at Richmond Raceway in August, in a race where the first 398 laps went caution free outside of the stage breaks, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., right on cue, crashes to bring out a caution on lap 399 — a caution that wound up leading to one of the most infamous endings in recent memory.
In many ways, it’s starting to feel like more of a surprise where there isn’t a late caution to force an overtime restart. The closing laps of races have become a ticking time bomb, with the leaders hoping to reach the white flag before it explodes.
When the race goes to overtime, the driver who would’ve won had the race ended under caution fares … poorly. Look no further than all the overtime finishes we’ve had this season, when the winner of the race in overtime changed hands nearly half the time.
| Race | # of Overtimes | Extra laps | Green Flag Run Before OT | Leader Before OT | Winner |
| Richmond I | 1 | 7 | 159 laps | Martin Truex Jr. | Denny Hamlin |
| Martinsville | 1 | 15 | 189 laps | William Byron | William Byron |
| Texas | 2 | 9 | 1 lap | Chase Elliott | Chase Elliott |
| Kansas | 1 | 1 | 56 laps | Denny Hamlin | Kyle Larson |
| New Hampshire | 1 | 4 | 3 laps | Christopher Bell | Christopher Bell |
| Nashville | 5 | 31 | 51 laps | Denny Hamlin | Joey Logano |
| Indy | 2 | 7 | 29 laps | Brad Keselowski | Kyle Larson |
| Richmond II | 1 | 8 | 159 laps | Austin Dillon | Austin Dillon* |
| Michigan | 2 | 6 | 54 laps | Tyler Reddick | Tyler Reddick |
| Daytona II | 1 | 4 | 2 laps | Kyle Busch | Harrison Burton |
| Atlanta II | 1 | 6 | 4 laps | Joey Logano | Joey Logano |
And that’s not even accounting for all the other positions that changed hands before and after overtime. After all, a lazy spin by Austin Cindric with 2 to go at Nashville Superspeedway led to a 5OT craze where nearly the entire finishing order was inverted by the time the checkered flag waved.
And with the later and later these types of finishes happen in the playoffs, more and more is at stake. Look at the race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in 2022, where the entire race went caution free until a piece of signage fell onto the track, triggering a late caution that led to two final restarts of madness. Bell would’ve been eliminated from the playoffs had the sign not fallen, and he instead used fresh tires to win the race and advance by the skin of his teeth.
Or look at last year’s Phoenix Raceway finale in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, where Grant Enfinger was going to win the title in a procedural ending until Corey Heim retaliated against Carson Hocevar with three laps to go after he was spun from the championship lead early in the final stage. The result was a four-overtime finish with numerous crashes that ultimately saw Enfinger lose the title by one spot to Ben Rhodes.
Overtime is certainly exciting, but it can flip the field upside down in the blink of an eye and serve as a detriment to the teams that excelled and ran well in the scheduled distance, all of which is increased 10-fold when it’s a race in the final quarter of the season.
At the same time, overtime’s not going away, nor should it. Even if it’s absurd how many races this season have come down to chaotic two-lap shootouts, having 11 of the first 27 races finish under caution wouldn’t be good for anyone.
Even then, four of the 11 overtime finishes this season (Texas, Indianapolis, Richmond II and this week) have proceeded to end under caution anyway with last-lap crashes.
All of that is a product of the current racing and etiquette seen throughout the field, as everyone is more aggressive and more willing to take risks to maximize their day — risks that often lead to crashes, late yellows and the multiple overtime finishes we see today. And until that changes, having double-digit overtime finishes per season could very well be the new normal.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf