NASCAR wants to shorten cautions and is having conversations about stage breaks

NASCAR fans are frustrated with the length of caution periods, and it seems like the sanctioning body has heard about it.

Stage cautions in particular have bore the brunt of the frustration, especially as the debate around shortening races raged this weekend after Kyle Larson said in a news conference that three hours is too long for Cup Series races. 

Stage yellows often eat up multiple laps and over 10 minutes of real time, which could cause some fans, especially casual viewers, to become disinterested in the race and move on. When cautions fall as they did at Indianapolis on Sunday with an incident right before a stage end that only lengthens how long it takes to get back to racing, fans' frustration only increases.

What NASCAR is looking at

"If NASCAR fans are angry at the length of caution periods, I can promise you that NASCAR matches that displeasure," said NASCAR's Mike Forde on the latest episode of "Hauler Talk". "We want green-flag racing, and we want to get it as fast as possible. Stage breaks are a big topic of conversation. We hear it, and we see it."

Forde noted that changes to NASCAR's process of "choosing", where drivers choose what lane they wish to be in on the final lap before a restart, could be enacted in order to shorten yellow-flag periods.

"There are several things in the hopper," Forde said. "It’s something that’s on our radar. It’s important to us to get back green. We keep stats religiously on the blocks of time between red-, yellow- and green-flag racing. We’re always working to get that green number higher and higher and higher."

Even with those two lengthy stage breaks, Sunday's Brickyard 400 took only three hours and eight minutes to complete.