In 2017, NASCAR introduced the concept of stage racing across all three national series and was met with mixed feedback from fans. Those who dislike it to this day will be pleased to know that the format came into existence on top of an even more controversial method of resetting the field known as the ‘caution clock.’
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The clock was introduced in 2016 in the Craftsman Truck Series as NASCAR’s attempt to make hour-by-hour racing more entertaining. According to the rule, every time a green flag waved, a 20-minute timer would begin counting down. When the mark hit 0:00, a competition caution would be thrown.
If an in-race caution occurs before the timer runs out, the clock will be reset to 20 minutes for the next green flag. The clock would be turned off for the final 20 laps of the race. NASCAR’s Executive VP Steve O’Donnell explained the need for this system, “We think it’s going to add to the strategy during the race.”
January 19, 2016: NASCAR announced the “Caution Clock” for the Truck Series. 20 minutes after a green flag was waved, a caution would be thrown.
The clock only lasted one year, replaced in 2017 by stage cautions on predetermined laps pic.twitter.com/7h1hvMvRYn
— nascarman (@nascarman_rr) January 19, 2025
“If you look at the Camping World Truck Series, that is an area where some of our younger drivers, our newer teams really can use the competition caution to be able to adjust on the truck.” However, there was another line in the official statement from the promotion which laid the reasons more transparently.
It went, “The rules change takes some cues from basketball, with its shot clocks and regularly scheduled TV timeouts.” NASCAR does not have scheduled breaks as other sports do. This presents a hurdle in fitting commercials into the schedule. The clock was a solution to this problem, and fans viewed it as such, eventually leading to hate against it.
The fate of the Caution Clock after the 2016 season
The biggest contention against the clock was that it prevented the natural flow of races. It was first used in the second race of the season in Atlanta. It ran out twice during the race and caused the race leaders to lose the advantage they’d gained. Former driver Kyle Petty was among those who heavily criticized it in the aftermath.
In the spring race at Kansas, the clock ran out and Jordan Anderson was taken to the pit road for a flat tire. This forced NASCAR to delay opening the pit road and resulted in many trucks running out of fuel under caution. This was about the troubles that the sport faced because of the clock. However, fans still hated it at the end of the season.
When the promotion was expected to heed the voices and make suitable changes, it went a step ahead and further solidified the planned breaks by introducing stage cautions. Stage cautions have undergone minor alterations since getting into the game in 2017, but is still just a modified version of the caution clock.
