Joey Logano gave a detailed account of why stage racing is important in light of the criticism after the Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas.
Not all changes in NASCAR receives universal acclaim and stage racing is one of them. Introduced in 2017, this system to break NASCAR’s traditional long-duration races into multiple stages haven’t been received well by some fans and professionals alike.
NASCAR also stops the race at stage breaks but that was removed for the for the six road and street course races this season as such that there will be no caution flag for stage breaks during those races.
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The Team Penske’s No. 22 driver didn’t go by the criticism that stage racing has received and asked the listner to remember why they were added in the first place.
“It’s easy to look at what’s wrong. And wanting to be better and I appreciate people wanting to be better all the time. But we also gotta realize why we are where we are. Why did we add stage breaks in the first place? Remember when we had those really long green flags around and everybody was complaining about it?,” Logano said.
“And we added stage breaks and we wanted to add points throughout the events because we are the only sport out there that wasn’t scoring points as the game goes, right? Football, basketball, soccer, any of them. They score points as the game goes. We can do that too and we have that place in there as well.
Logano also pointed out that due to stage racing and stage points, a driver won’t be left empty handed just for a mistake or a crash towards the end of the race but will be rewarded for the permorfance throughout the stages.
“So, if you are running the whole race and you are running third and you crash at the end, you get nothing. Well, now at least you can get something. That’s why we added stage points. That keeps more intense moments throughout the race.
“Now i’s like I gotta race hard for my points. I am pretty sure race fans wanna see that. That’s why we put it there in the first place. We should love it and appreciate stage racing.
Stage racing certainly has its perks and it also divides the usually gong NASCAR race to shorter segments which is more attractive to the younger audience. But who knows maybe a new system will replace stage racing in the future. But for now, it seems that it is doing just fine.