NASCAR Changes Stage Break Rules to Cut Caution Laps

NASCAR will begin using a new stage-break procedure in its Cup Series this weekend at Iowa Speedway and will keep it in place for the rest of the season, the sanctioning body said.

Under the new rules, when a natural caution occurs with 10 or fewer laps remaining in Stage 1 or Stage 2, the stage will be deemed complete at the time of the caution. That same caution period will then serve as the scheduled stage break, rather than the field running additional laps under yellow and then taking a second caution for the break.

NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell said Thursday on social media that the change grew out of the July 26 race at the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis, where he said fans were unhappy with too many back-to-back laps run under caution near stage breaks.

"Long periods of caution laps and not enough green-flag racing," O'Donnell said. "We heard you, and we want to make a change. ... No more back-to-back cautions. No more elongated cautions laps. More green flag racing. More action for you the fans."

NASCAR said that when the field returns to the start/finish line under yellow, the leader will receive the green-and-white checkered flag along with the yellow flag, signaling the end of the stage.

The finishing order for the stage will be set as of the moment of the caution. NASCAR said the top-10 stage finishing order will be determined using all available resources, including scoring loops and video replay — the same approach already used to award stage points.

Stage racing, which breaks each Cup Series event into segments with points awarded to the top 10 finishers in each, has been part of the series' format for several seasons. The revised procedure applies only to the first two stages of a race.