© Jason Allen/Imagn
A pair of last-lap cautions marred first the two races of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. While stars William Byron and Christopher Bell won the races at Daytona and Atlanta, all fans could talk about were the controversial endings. In the first instance, drivers were permitted to race back to the checkered flag. However, at Atlanta, NASCAR threw the caution flag, ending the race as it stood at the time of caution.
This led to plenty of frustration, with superstars such as Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch their displeasure with both the style of racing and the way which the series officiates race endings. On Tuesday, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer appeared on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and addressed the situation, as well as providing a potential solution.
“It’s a split-second decision by the race director. It can’t be a collaborative effort in a decision there. You don’t have time to call timeout and do you wanna call it, do you not wanna call it. That’s just not the way to do that,” Sawyer said. “We’ve had meetings with our race directors, and I think they have a true understanding now after Saturday night of exactly how we want to do this. I use the analogy of other sports… it’s like a quarterback that’s in the pocket getting ready to throw a pass. There’s a clock in your head that starts to wind down and you either got to pass or you got to run, or the pocket is gonna collapse.”
NASCAR does not have a cut and dry rule for when to throw a caution. This often leads to difficult situations on the last lap when the race director must balance driver safety and the entertainment factor of a green-flag finish. However, the series did used to have what was referred to as a “caution line.” If the yellow flag came out after drivers passed that line, which was typically located somewhere on the backstretch, then the race would end at that point.
Sawyer says he’d like the sport to return to using that standard.
“Absolutely, and we’ll look at all those situations,” he said of sifting through each indivdual finish. “We’ve had the line of on the back straightaway at superspeedways. To be perfectly honest with you, I’m not sure why we got away from that.
“I’m sure there was a good reason that didn’t work as we had hoped. But we will take a deeper dive to basically be able to assure a green flag finish as well as the safety of all competitors and our fans alike. So, we will definitely take a look.”
Thankfully for Sawyer and NASCAR, the series will not return to a superspeedway until it heads to Talladega on April 27.