NASCAR Stage Racing: Pros and Cons

Pro – Added strategy

As mentioned in the first slide of this article, stage racing means that races are broken up into stages, with a caution flag period ending every stage before the next stage beings.

The number one thing that this affects is strategy, namely pit strategy, as drivers need to decide whether to sacrifice a good result in the current stage just to pit early in order to gain positions at the start of the next stage or to secure a good result in the current stage and get the points that come along with it while sacrificing a few positions to begin the next stage, all while factoring in the long-term effects of their decision that will show up toward the end of the race.

As you can tell just by reading that last paragraph, this has made, makes and will continue to make things very interesting during NASCAR races.

Many fans might argue that the added strategy is a con of stage racing, as planned cautions take away from what a race is supposed to be in a way. However, every driver and team knows about the stage lengths and when the caution flags are coming out going into every race, so no one has an unfair advantage and teams are forced to strategize appropriately to try to take advantage of those caution flag periods, particularly with their pit strategy.