Caution clocks and timed races

Even with the caution clock, who's to say the tower won't order a flag for something along the lines of a helium balloon floating over the relic in Indiana?
 
Reck said:
When it comes to NASCAR everything is just a matter of time.

But I do rather like the timed events idea. Not the countdown clock though.

Something more along the lines of what F1 does. 2 Hour limit..maybe 2 and a half.

If they cut the phony cautions the races will move along a lot quicker. That's for certain.
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Currently many cautions are unnecessarily long as a 10 minute pause in green flag racing in order to pick up an errant spring rubber is ridiculous. Keep the pits closed, don't allow for free passes and wave arounds and get back to the action. Maybe timed races would give Nascar the impetus to make a change like this but on the other hand it makes too much sense.

One area I could see where timed races might pose a problem is for people attending the event live. If the green flag waved at 1:00 PM and the race was 2 hours and 30 minutes long and there were a lot of cautions it would eat into the green flag time.

Nitro Dude said:
That just may be the shot in the arm that Indy car and some of the other racing series needs to climb back up the mountain. Maybe there are just not enough motorsports fans and sponsors left in the world to feed so many different racing series anymore. If nascar closed it's doors and some of the other series grabbed just half of the fan base and their drivers, and their sponsors then that would be a pretty stout shot. Plus they would never have to worry anymore about trying to make the 500 and 600 on the same day in the month of May. Ones demise could be someone else's triumph. Just something to keep in mind.
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Although there are fans of both Nascar and open wheel racing I know some of the open wheel fans look down on Nascar as a series and also look down upon the fans. I think if open wheel went away there would be very few that crossed over to Nascar as they see it as low brow. Obviously I don't agree with this but it is a definite mindset of some.

FLRacingFan said:
I don't want to watch a race where I know the majority of the event will be largely irrelevant. Yeah, lame debris cautions usually serve this purpose a lot of the time but at least there exists the chance of an extended green flag run (a la Atlanta earlier this year). If you know exactly when they're going to be bunched back up why even bother with most of the race?
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What you say is so true especially with the cookie cutters and plate races. With short tracks and road courses I think it is different as there is always action on the track somewhere that is fun to watch if the networks show it. However with the cookie cutters and plate races there is no compelling reason to watch much more than the last 20 laps as by that time a caution will have been called to bunch things up and that really becomes the race.

One thing no one talks about today versus yesterday is the difference in the reliability of the cars. Back in the 80's and early 90's engines used to grenade regularly and multiple cars always had problems with overheating. Darrell Waltrip could have 2 laps on the field but you never knew how safe that was due to the things I mentioned. There were also a lot more brake and suspension issues that could bite you hard so the lack of reliability kept your interest.

How often do we see an non damaged car blowing steam on pit road or boiling the brakes? Not very often so by making the cars so much better it has taken the wildcard aspect out of most races as once you have a leader check out on the field at a cookie cutter the only thing that will normally slow him down is the caution.

BobbyFord said:
I lost interest in open wheel decades ago.
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The split finished it off for me. Instead of watching Emo & Rick I saw Buzz Calkins and Billy Boat.

FLRacingFan said:
I guess I wouldn't care so much about timed races as long as they weren't unnecessarily short but just a time maximum ensuring the race fits within its allotted TV window. I've seen a few Aussie Supercars races get cut by a couple of laps or so and it hasn't seemed like such a big deal. I wouldn't be in favor of it but I wouldn't strongly oppose it either. I don't think you mess with the major events though - Daytona, Bristol night race, Indy, Darlington, 600, Richmond night race, Homestead.
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I know it is often joked about but some of Nascar's races are the cure for insomnia as those suckers will get your eyelids to feel like they are 25 pounds each and your head bobbing. There are some races that a 45-75 minute time would be plenty.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
The attitude of your son is refreshing and I only wish it could be duplicated again and again within his age group. Even though I have preferences for things I would like to see in Nascar they are not important at all compared to young people as he will be a fan 50 years from now whereas I expect to be pushing up daisies long before 10 years are up.

Aunty is an intelligent person but as I have said to him before man would have never landed on the moon if he had any say in it because he would have said it was impossible. Obviously physics can never be removed from the equation when it comes to racing but its effect can be curtailed in many ways if the will to do so is present.
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My kid isn't stupid thanks to his Mother....He is seeing something that many here aren't. I have my suspicions, but I am biased.

My money is on @aunty dive.
 
R Clarence said:
Even with the caution clock, who's to say the tower won't order a flag for something along the lines of a helium balloon floating over the relic in Indiana?
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The caution clock won't do away with bogus cautions but will help Nascar not have to call as many.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
The attitude of your son is refreshing and I only wish it could be duplicated again and again within his age group. Even though I have preferences for things I would like to see in Nascar they are not important at all compared to young people as he will be a fan 50 years from now whereas I expect to be pushing up daisies long before 10 years are up.

Aunty is an intelligent person but as I have said to him before man would have never landed on the moon if he had any say in it because he would have said it was impossible. Obviously physics can never be removed from the equation when it comes to racing but its effect can be curtailed in many ways if the will to do so is present.
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You are confusing me with Ryan Newman.

I'm not sure why ... I have a neck.
 
I don't know what I want. Still watching though, so I must not be too disgusted with the product.

Ideally I want to see indy's style of racing(specifically their super speedway product), with nascar's safety. I cannot watch Indy anymore mostly due to the number of deaths and severe injuries. But Indy's speedway racing today is like NASCAR's was in the '80s and '90s, with the constant slingshot passing.
 
Revman said:
My kid isn't stupid thanks to his Mother....He is seeing something that many here aren't. I have my suspicions, but I am biased.

My money is on @aunty dive.
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I would yield to his experience in those matters for sure but don't tell him I said so.
 
Simple Fan said:
I wasn't a fan of the caution clock when it was announced but after seeing it in the Truck series it wasn't all that bad. A lot of the time it didn't factor into the race with real cautions usually happening before the clock expired. I think it would be something they should try in the Xfinity Series this year before it moves up to Cup though. Not a fan of timed races though, I'd rather not have a 400mile race decided at 350 miles because the time ran out.
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It wouldn't be a 400 mile race; it would be a 180-minute race. The distance would no longer be part of the event name or any factor in scoring.

I don't have a problem with timed races, at least not watching them in other series like IMSA. If nothing else, it would likely eliminate the baggage associated with GWC / overtime, the backstretch restart line, etc. I'm not advocating timed races in NASCAR, but they won't bother me much.

Caution clocks? Stuff that. Might as well change directions at the quarter-distance or -time and have a marching band at halftime.
 
29-4 said:
... It destroys the very basis of what racing is supposed to be about. ...
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Seriously? It's just an inversion. Instead of seeing who can cover a given distance in the shortest amount of time, it's seeing who can cover the most distance in a given amount of time. Six of one, half a dozen of the other; the fastest guy and car still win.
 
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Couldn't care less about timed races as long as it is cut and dry and not some bastardized version of a timed race.

As for the caution clock, I don't have a problem with it in the truck series. Guys are driving in trucks to get experience. If they want to have a caution every so often to give the teams a chance to make adjustments and bunch them back up so these young guys can gain experience racing each other, so be it. That said, it has no place in either Xfinity or Cup.
 
joe h said:
I don't know what I want. Still watching though, so I must not be too disgusted with the product.

Ideally I want to see indy's style of racing(specifically their super speedway product), with nascar's safety. I cannot watch Indy anymore mostly due to the number of deaths and severe injuries. But Indy's speedway racing today is like NASCAR's was in the '80s and '90s, with the constant slingshot passing.
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Nascar seems to be a lot safer than stick and ball sports as those guys are concussed regularly, tear up their knees, break bones and in general just get beat up. I was watching a hockey game the other night and the end of a player's skate hit the goaltender near his chin and he skated off and got stitches before resuming play.

I am not saying this has any correlation as there are many factors in play but in general the safer Nascar has become the more fans have walked away.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
Currently many cautions are unnecessarily long as a 10 minute pause in green flag racing in order to pick up an errant spring rubber is ridiculous. Keep the pits closed, don't allow for free passes and wave arounds and get back to the action. Maybe timed races would give Nascar the impetus to make a change like this but on the other hand it makes too much sense.

One area I could see where timed races might pose a problem is for people attending the event live. If the green flag waved at 1:00 PM and the race was 2 hours and 30 minutes long and there were a lot of cautions it would eat into the green flag time.
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Why would that be more of a problem for people in attendance than those of us at home? I've been to Bristol and Martinsville races that included over 150 total laps of cautions. That's one reason why I like Bristol's reconfiguration - fewer cautions means more racing, but that's a debate for another discussion.
 
joe h said:
I don't know what I want. Still watching though, so I must not be too disgusted with the product.

Ideally I want to see indy's style of racing(specifically their super speedway product), with nascar's safety. I cannot watch Indy anymore mostly due to the number of deaths and severe injuries. But Indy's speedway racing today is like NASCAR's was in the '80s and '90s, with the constant slingshot passing.
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Eventually Indy, F1, etc. will get around to closing those ****pits, and that will likely occur sooner rather than later. Five years tops, sez I.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
It wouldn't be a 400 mile race; it would be a 180-minute race. The distance would no longer be part of the event name or any factor in scoring.

I don't have a problem with timed races, at least not watching them in other series like IMSA. If nothing else, it would likely eliminate the baggage associated with GWC / overtime, the backstretch restart line, etc. I'm not advocating timed races in NASCAR, but they won't bother me much.

Caution clocks? Stuff that. Might as well change directions at the quarter-distance or -time and have a marching band at halftime.
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Several years ago the NHL instituted several initiatives and one of them was to speed up the game. No more lollygagging around by the referees and players between whistles as these days things move at a brisk clip. A few times a period the after the whistle has stopped play a TV timeout happens and there are normally 90 seconds of commercials and play resumes about 10-15 seconds after that.

I said all that to say I would support timed races if sense of urgency was also factored in and Nascar and officials treated every second as important. In other words you can't send a crew out to look for debris that doesn't exist and have them fart around for 5 minutes pretending to do something. If races are called the same way as they are today we stand the chance of losing a lot of green flag laps and while it may not impact viewers at home those at the track could justifiably feel shortchanged.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
Why would that be more of a problem for people in attendance than those of us at home? I've been to Bristol and Martinsville races that included over 150 total laps of cautions. That's one reason why I like Bristol's reconfiguration - fewer cautions means more racing, but that's a debate for another discussion.
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I think there are always exceptions but at big tracks you could lose several laps of green flag racing due to caution periods. If a car at speed is circumnavigating Pocono in about 60 seconds or 175 mph how many seconds does it take under yellow? 180-200 seconds? IDK but it could skew things if there happened to be several cautions.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
Seriously? It's just an inversion. Instead of seeing who can cover a given distance in the shortest amount of time, it's seeing who can cover the most distance in a given amount of time. Six of one, half a dozen of the other; the fastest guy and car still win.
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I'm almost positive he was referencing the caution clock with that, not timed races.

IMO it's silly to get upset about timed races in the context of all the other changes that have been and will be made. NASCAR already bastardized what a 400-mile or 500-mile races means with GWC and "overtime".
 
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Heck, some are stressed over a name for the cup series.

Wonder how stressed they’ll be over dropping four and five hundreds for two and a halfs.
 
Here's how I generally react and decide on the merits of whatever NASCAR's new flavor of the week tweak is. Does another respectable form of motorsports do it, and if so, how does it work there? I don't compare their ideas to damn football or basketball, because auto racing is not that kind of sport. If they're doing something other forms of racing are not, it's probably dumb and bad. They aren't bold and forward-thinking as Brian France says. They are just desperate and have little integrity.

Timed races rather than distance races, no big deal. Seen it many times, works fine. Caution clocks? Pure idiocy.
 
gnomesayin said:
I'm almost positive he was referencing the caution clock with that, not timed races.

IMO it's silly to get upset about timed races in the context of all the other changes that have been and will be made. NASCAR already bastardized what a 400-mile or 500-mile races means with GWC and "overtime".
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Correct, gnome. While I don't love timed races, I don't think it destroys the spirit of racing like cautions clocks do.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
It wouldn't be a 400 mile race; it would be a 180-minute race. The distance would no longer be part of the event name or any factor in scoring.

I don't have a problem with timed races, at least not watching them in other series like IMSA. If nothing else, it would likely eliminate the baggage associated with GWC / overtime, the backstretch restart line, etc. I'm not advocating timed races in NASCAR, but they won't bother me much.

Caution clocks? Stuff that. Might as well change directions at the quarter-distance or -time and have a marching band at halftime.
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Well that's sounds even dumber. So it would be the Daytona 180? Would much rather have the caution clock. Cautions never really bother me as you get a restart and those are some of the best parts of a race.
 
Not just wrecks but that's also when drivers show what they have and get aggressive. Some of the best racing happens after restarts and it's amazing that they don't wreck at times.
 
aunty dive said:
Safe bet. Your obvious intelligence is exceeded only by your good looks.

New ugly sweater this Christmas or are you sticking with the old one?
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Haven't been able to get that damn thing back from @KyleFan18.....Pumps either..... Better check Ebay. SOB.
 
Simple Fan said:
Well that's sounds even dumber. So it would be the Daytona 180? Would much rather have the caution clock. Cautions never really bother me as you get a restart and those are some of the best parts of a race.
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And that is the problem as restarts and pit stops should never ever be the best part of any race. At least they never used to be.....amirite fellow oldtimers?
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
And that is the problem as restarts and pit stops should never ever be the best part of any race. At least they never used to be.....amirite fellow oldtimers?
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Quibble - green flag pit cycles are certainly among the best parts of a race.

Pitting under caution, esp. when picking up a single piece of debris? No way, Jose.
 
R Clarence said:
Gives ya a better chance of seein' a way cool wreck, huh?
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All sorts of cool stuff happen on restarts as who'd a ever guessed Matt Kenseth would have broken a tie rod end and accidentally run into another car or Kevin Harvick would jack up the field at Talladega and accidentally take out the 21 car.

be9ak7ts16 said:
Timed races and caution clocks will kill any interest I have left in NASCAR.
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It is easy to think that way but as much as Nascar has WWE'd the series another couple of gimmicks don't really hurt. It is like when Laverne and Shirley moved from Milwaukee to Hollywood.....it didn't really hurt things as the show had already died.

AuzGrams said:
There's no way there will be a caution clock in the top 2 series, right?
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I think so because as @ToyYoda pointed out there already is a caution clock in use except it is disguised as a yellow flag. An official egg timer will allow Nascar to call less bogus yellows and will give it a lot more flexibility when setting the show up for the final laps.

Charlie Spencer said:
I find 'Cup' offensive, and would prefer you use the words 'trophy', 'mug', or 'supporter', depending on context.
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Can I use athletic supporter as they are cups?
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
And that is the problem as restarts and pit stops should never ever be the best part of any race. At least they never used to be.....amirite fellow oldtimers?
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I tend to think so, but whether that's right or not, the issue for myself and many is that cautions and restarts are by-products of racing that should occur naturally when they are necessary. They shouldn't be tools for officials to use to manipulate races as they see fit. I know the subject has already been beaten to death. The only thing I can take away from a response like Simple Fan's, no disrespect intended, is that he views the races as pure entertainment. What is more exciting is better.

I could do the thing where we compare it to other sports, though that's always questionable. The reality is that Brian France is famous for saying he wanted to create "Game 7 moments", and he's too much of an ADD-addled manchild to realize that in real sports and competitions, every year and every 'game' doesn't produce that. That's why they're special.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I think it's a question of when and not if.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the Caution Clock implemented this season in NASCAR's Premier Series, formally known as Cup. There's been too many questions about this in the NASCAR Fan Council surveys this season.

I think timed races are to follow in 2018 to address the short attention span crowd. Maybe not for the Daytona 500 and the 600 at Charlotte but I think the rest will be under some sort of time limit.

Both of these topics have been the subject of discussion recently on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Normally when they drive a topic, it's only a matter of time until it's announced.
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Well, I can say that every chance I get on the Fan Council survey, I write in No caution clocks and no heat races for qualifying in Nascar anywhere (except the one Truck Dirt Race)
 
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