Carson Hocevar added to his long list of enemies by making contact with Brad Keselowski toward the end of the first stage of Sunday night's Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, bringing out a caution.
While much of the attention was rightfully placed on the fact that Hocevar was the cause of yet another on-track run-in, leading Keselowski to promise payback as Hocevar shrugged off the spin in the most Hocevar way possible when interviewed after the race, that contact actually helped debut one of NASCAR's newest rules.
Before the race at Iowa Speedway in early August, NASCAR announced that they would be changing the way natural cautions are handled at the end of stages. Beginning at Iowa, if a natural caution occurs with 10 or fewer laps remaining in a stage, the stage is classified as complete.
NASCAR finally debuts new rule, thanks to Carson Hocevar
The change came about not only to prevent NASCAR from forcing a one-lap or two-lap shootout just to try to end a stage under green, but to prevent an unnecessarily high number of laps under caution, since the actual stage caution would result in a second guaranteed (and usually lengthy) break in the action shortly after any potential restart.
All things considered, the change was fairly well received by the drivers.
Yet the change had no effect at Iowa, and it also had no effect during the next three races at Richmond Raceway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, or Daytona International Speedway.
But on lap 108 of Sunday's 367-lap race around the four-turn, 1.366-mile (2.198-kilometer) egg-shaped Darlington, South Carolina oval, Hocevar made sure that streak would come to an end.
Stage one had been scheduled to end after lap 115, but the stage results (specifically the top 10) were deemed official once the Hocevar-Keselowski caution flag flew. Points were awarded to the top 10 drivers, led by 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick.
While it took nearly a month for the rule change to actually take effect, Darlington proved that when it comes to stage racing, it really is about being in the right place at the right time now more than ever, especially since this is the first "Chase" postseason to utilize stages. The original "Chase" was removed after 2013, and stage racing didn't start until 2017.
Every point matters under the new playoff format, and if there are 10 laps to go in a stage, there might not actually be 10 laps to go in a stage.
Instead of adding one second to the clock, like they do for no reason in Hocevar's and Keselowski's home state, NASCAR can effectively reduce the remaining stage length to zero once a race hits that window and hand out a total of 55 points, all with the drop of a yellow flag.
Will the change come into effect again this weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway? Live coverage of the Enjoy Illinois 300 is set to be provided by USA Network beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, September 13.
Add us as a preferred source on Google