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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
HEMBREE: A Mixed Review On New Finish Format
There's two sides to NASCAR's new green-white-checkered flag rule...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted February 12, 2010   Daytona Beach, FL
2010 Bud Shootout winner Kevin Harvick crosses the line with the yellow and checkered flags waving. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
It’s a good move. It’s a bad move.

Either way, though, it makes for better moves – on the track.

Depending on how you look at it – and there is a wad of vantage points on this one, NASCAR’s latest lurch toward juicing its racing is the greatest thing since wide-screen TV or the worst thing since you dropped the remote in the toilet.

In its three major series, NASCAR has decided to use as many as three attempts to finish races under green-flag conditions, dramatically expanding the scope of the “green-white-checkered” concept previously in place. Prior to this week, only one green-white-checkered attempt was made. If a caution appeared during the two-lap span, the race officially was over.

Now NASCAR will add two more attempts to produce a green-flag finish, meaning races can be extended for more than a handful of laps beyond the advertised distance.

This is a good move because it’s a plus for fans. The change significantly increases the likelihood that races will end with a green-flag dash to the finish, and, in this period of trying to please each and every fan to the “nth” degree, it’s the next logical step.

This is a bad move because it’s overly artificial, a “make-happy” way to spike the excitement at the end of a race. As Mark Martin has suggested, it doesn’t help the integrity of the sport.

Clearly, there are two sides to this story.

There is no question that fans are likely to leave the track in a happier mood based on the idea that they’re much more likely to see a green-flag finish. And that’s important.

There are few things that dampen a race-day experience more than a caution-flag finish and a slow parade of cars under the checkered. Even a rotten race can be saved by a tight, thrilling finish, and fans go home all abuzz rather than grumpy. They’re much more likely to buy a ticket for the next race.

The question, though, is how far do you take the “green-white-checkered” concept before it reaches the level of lunacy? If you’re going to do it three times, why not five? Or 10? Could this become as ridiculous as a Saturday-night short track employing restart after restart to finally decide a race deep into Sunday morning?

Maybe three is a happy medium. But more and bigger wrecks are likely in this new landscape, and there will be new fuel calculations needed in the waning laps. As cars continue to circle the track while the continuing green-white-checkereds are being assembled, there is the very real possibility that the driver leading the race could run out of fuel. Losing a race in that fashion will be a very lousy circumstance for the first driver so impacted.

There also is no question that this new environment will be more dangerous, particularly on the circuit’s bigger, faster tracks. This is still a sport in which people can be hurt, and hurt badly. The rush to produce better finishes can increase the possibility of injuries or worse.

Is the risk worth the reward? Most of the principals seem to think so.

But we do race into sort of an unknown.

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 Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of Americas Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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