NASCAR Stage Racing: Pros and Cons

NASCAR introduced stage racing across its top three series this season. Some fans like it, while some don’t. What are some of the pros and cons of stage racing?

Stage racing was introduced across NASCAR’s three biggest series, the Cup Series, the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series, before the start of the 2017 season. It essentially breaks each race into three* stages, with the first two stages being of equal length and the third and final stage being the longest stage.

Many fans, especially some of the old-timers, have been extremely critical of stage racing, and many of those fans and other fans have left the sport because of it. And if they haven’t left, they have at the very least voiced their beliefs that stage racing has been the cause of a lot of fans leaving.

However, the reception of stage racing has certainly not been all bad. Many fans and drivers enjoy the added layers of strategy it injects into the racing itself and how it tends to inevitably cause each race, including its outcome, to be more interesting.

Here are a few of the pros and cons of NASCAR stage racing. We’ll start off with a pro.

*=Coca-Cola 600 was broken into four stages of equal length, not three with two of the three being of equal length