Stage breaks return for Charlotte Roval NASCAR races

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR's senior vice president of competition, said in an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Tuesday morning, that the sanctioning body has elected to reintegrate stage break cautions for the only remaining road course this season - the Xfinity and Cup playoff races on Oct. 7 and 8.

“Probably the most important part of this decision-making was, if you look back at our five previous road course races, although they were competitive, there were some that felt like that were some things we could do differently — obviously going back to the caution stage breaks — that would potentially make our races better,” Sawyer said. 

“So, we had the option to pull that lever.”

Ryan Blaney, Team Penske, Discount Tire Ford Mustang, Aric Almirola, Stewart Haas Racing, Haas Automation Ford Mustang, Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports, HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro

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NASCAR announced before the season began that it would eliminate stage break cautions at road and street courses to allow the event to flow more naturally. Each race still had specified stages, but no caution was thrown when each stage was completed, only points awarded for the top 10 running order.

Without the cautions for stage breaks, the past two Cup road course races — at the Indy Road Course and Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International — each had one caution. Both races averaged a little over two hours in length.

In addition, Sawyer also announced - just as it has done in some other road courses races this season - it has altered the restart zone for the Roval races. The move was made to help prevent first-turn pile ups on starts and restarts.

The restart zone will be moved to the exit of the frontstretch chicane at the Roval.

“It will give us a little bit of separation in the first two or three rows as they head off into Turn 1," Sawyer said.