It has been an interesting experiment to say the least at the road courses this season in NASCAR, as the sport decided to do away with stage cautions at those tracks.
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At first, it seemed like an interesting twist. But a number of drivers, and even fans, haven't liked how the races have played out as the season continued.
One such driver who is in favor of stage cautions returning to the road courses is defending series champion Joey Logano.
The last race at Watkins Glen proved to be one of the quickest races in recent NASCAR memory as it finished in under two hours. Some races get dragged on because of those extra stage yellows, but Logano took some time on his segment on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio to talk about why he believes they need those stage cautions back.
Count @joeylogano as a fan of bringing back stage cautions on road courses moving forward ⬇️
💭 “I don’t know why we changed from what we were doing [...] to me, it’s not manufacturing a race.”
More 𝘽𝙚𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙚𝙡 with the champ → https://t.co/oek7E77mXk pic.twitter.com/Wcm5EAaDKd
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) August 22, 2023
"I like the stage breaks," Logano said with a laugh. "I don't know if I'm against the majority or not. I kind of like having a caution to re-rack them and go again. I don't know why we changed from what we were doing, and like, different than other places. Like I don't know, to me it's not manufacturing a race in any way. We all know the other caution is going to fall."
Logano's point about the lack of caution without the stage breaks makes it harder for drivers and teams to change strategy, and as most of the road course races this season have shown, once someone gets a lead there isn't much the second-place driver or someone else trying a different strategy can do to catch them.
Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images
"It's not like a mystery debris caution that wasn't actually debris. That's not this. It's a real caution that is, it is announced, and we know when it's going to be, and there's plenty of strategy that we can play around those cautions because we know it's coming. Without the caution, it was pretty much cut and dry on what your strategy is going to be. Like here's what it is."
According to Logano, they don't wreck much anymore, so not having those stage cautions all but takes away any chance for a driver that starts 10th or worse at the start of the race to get to the front and potentially win. Clearly, taking the stage cautions away at road courses hasn't panned out like NASCAR was hoping, or at least in Logano's opinion.
