NASCAR drivers react to new stage break procedure from Iowa onwards

NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell announced a change to their stage break procedure starting at Iowa Speedway for all series.

The change is simple. If a caution comes out with under ten laps remaining in the stage, then the time of the caution will end the stage. The subsequent points will be handed out there as well.

This amend comes after the recent backlash during this years Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

During the first stage, Kyle Larson spun out with six laps to go in the stage which set up a single lap shootout for the stage win.

By the time the two sequences played itself out, the fans at home and at the speedway were upset. Roughly 15 minutes of dead time occurred on the speedway and plenty of commercials for those at home happened between the two periods.

With the amend, instead of racing until the designated lap count in the first stage, that caution caused by Larson would have ended the stage then and there.

Driver Remarks

Fans were not the only ones left unhappy. Drivers were not too pleased with the amount of dead time as well.

With the news of the rule changing announcement, a few drivers took to social media to react to the needed change.

Former NASCAR Cup Series driver Mark Martin thanked the CEO and NASCAR for the change.

Dale Earnhardt Jr responded with his support for the change. “This will be a great move embraced by fans and everyone else in the industry” said Jr.

The often outspoken Denny Hamlin responded without words. Instead he responded with a quick gif showing his support of the change.

Finally, Brad Keselowski reacted with a simple remark, “Everyone liked that”.

The sport will shift back into gear after the final off-weekend of the season as the Cup Series heads to Iowa Speedway to begin the first of their final four races in the regular season.

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