After a wave of frustration from NASCAR fans about the number of wasted laps under caution when cautions come out in the closing laps of a Stage in the NASCAR National Series, the sanctioning body has made an official change to the way Stage Cautions will be handled, beginning with this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series events at Iowa Speedway.
Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s CEO, hand-delivered the new rules update via a video shared to the NASCAR social media channels on Thursday.
You want more action. We're here to deliver.
NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell shares an update to stage break procedures starting at @iowaspeedway. pic.twitter.com/cNmpyfKhjC
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 6, 2026
“I wanted to take a moment to update you on a new rule change we’ll have for this weekend coming into Iowa. And it stems from what happened in Indy, where we’ve seen all too often a caution comes out before the Stage break, we run a number of caution laps. We try and get back green. Stage break comes, and we’re back to caution. Long periods of caution laps, not enough green-flag racing. We heard you; we want to make a change,” O’Donnell explained in the video.
As for the changes, starting this weekend, if a caution comes out with 10 laps to go, or less, in Stage 1 or Stage 2, that caution will count as the official ending of the Stage. Stage results will be determined by the running order at the time of caution.
“No more back-to-back cautions. No more elongated caution laps,” O’Donnell said. “More green flag racing. More action for you, the fans.”
O’Donnell would go on to praise the NASCAR fan base for expressing its desire for the caution period near the end of Stages to be cleaned and tidied up.
“I want to thank you because you helped push this. Your passion for this sport has helped us make changes more quickly,” O’Donnell said to the fans.
O’Donnell cautioned, “It’s not going to be perfect, but we’re going to learn from this and continue to innovate.”
This is a welcome change, and hopefully, it can lead to an overall reduction of caution laps throughout an entire race weekend.
