On Thursday (Aug. 6), NASCAR announced adjustments to their rules related to stage cautions and stage breaks.
Under the new procedure, whenever a natural caution occurs with 10 or fewer laps to go in a stage, the stage will end there, and the leader will come back around to the start/finish line for both the yellow and green-and-white checkered flag. NASCAR will utilize scoring loops and video replay to determine the top 10 for the purposes of distributing stage points.
During Saturday’s media availability leading up to this weekend’s Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway, several Cup Series drivers weighed in on the tweaks to the stage break rules.
Three-time Cup champion Joey Logano voiced his support for the change.
“It makes sense,” Logano said. “You know, I always thought it’s an awkward moment for the race a lot of times when you green for a lap, maybe two, and the caution comes back out. It’s a lot of waiting around. I think it’s good.”
Shane van Gisbergen also reacted positively to the new rule, noting that it will help with the flow of races.
“I just got it explained to me, and I think it will be good,” van Gisbergen said. “We spend way too long under yellow, so minimizing that and maximizing race laps I think is a very good change.”
To see more driver reactions to the NASCAR stage caution changes, watch the video below or on the Frontstretch YouTube page.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 and is currently an editor and a weekly writer of Stat Sheet. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.