Change could lead to aggressiveness
The green-white-checkered finish gives fans what they wanted.
By JAY HART
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.
NASCAR has answered the call of disgruntled fans tired of watching races finish under caution. Sunday's New England 300 will be the first to implement NASCAR's newest rule change -- the green-white-checkered finish.
Under the new procedure, if a caution flag comes out and the white flag -- signaling drivers are into the last lap -- hasn't been waived, instead of stopping the race or having it end under caution, the race will be extended. Once the track is cleared of any debris or of anything else that brought out the caution, a two-lap sprint to the checkered flag will decide the winner.
"I think it is a compromise in that the fans certainly deserve to see the race finish under green," said Ricky Craven, echoing the sentiment of most drivers. "[Fans] have voiced their displeasure, and they are the bottom line."
Not all good
The rule change seems to placate the spectators' desire to see a race finish under green, but it's not that simple. For example, if Jimmie Johnson is leading the race and has calculated his fuel mileage for 300 laps, then has to run 302 laps because of the restart, his fans might want to rethink the new rule when Johnson runs out of gas on Lap 301.
Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief, said he won't plan for additional laps, adding, "If you start to play ifs, ands or buts, you're just going to catch yourself way out of the game and end up with nothing.
"I don't really agree with it," he continued. "It's like going to a football game and telling the losing team that's on the 5-yard line that, OK, we're out of time but we're going to give you one more shot to see if you tie it up."
Four of 18 races have finished under caution this year -- Talladega, Charlotte, Pocono and Michigan. Six races finished under caution in 2003.
The new format doesn't necessarily guarantee a green-flag finish. If the white flag has already come out, the final lap and, thus, the race would end under caution. Also, only one green-white-checkered finish will be tried. If a yellow flag were to come out in these final two laps, the race would end under caution.
NASCAR installed the limit in the wake of a disastrous finish last week in its Craftsman Truck Series, which has used a no-limit, green-white-checkered format since its inception in 1995. Last Saturday, three crashes meant it took four restarts before the race finally ended.
More accidents possible
The limit will assure that won't happen in the Cup series, but it won't diminish the odds of an accident happening when every car is bunched up and drivers are sitting there with an itchy trigger foot trying to get an advantage on the restart.
"We are all going to have to be prepared for the tempers that will be flaring at the end of each race that finishes with the aggressive driving this is going to create," said Todd Parrott, the crew chief for Elliott Sadler. "I think there are going to be a lot of cars torn up as a result, and what happened between the No. 9 [Kasey Kahne] and the No. 20 [Tony Stewart] cars in Chicago may happen again. When you are in the heat of the battle, sometimes things happen."
Parrott was talking, of course, of when Stewart ran up on Kahne's bumper, spinning him out for the second time this season. But that incident came on a restart not even midway through the Chicago race. Tempers flared then, with members of Kahne's pit crew getting into a scuffle with Stewart's crew. Imagine what would happen if that had come on Lap 301 of a scheduled 300-lap race.
"I think everybody knows the personalities that exist in our sport," said Johnson. "When you bunch us back up, I think those personalities will be exaggerated and you're going to see more of the same out of everybody already."