Have you noticed how many NASCAR Cup Series races this season have looked like they would end on a long green flag run, only for a caution to come out right on cue with two or three laps to go?
If you have, you’re not alone.
This Sunday’s (August 11) Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway marked the eighth overtime finish of the season, with all eight occurring in the last 17 races. With 13 races in the season to go, 2024 is only three overtimes away from tying the all-time high of 11 set back in 2017.
Of the eight overtime finishes, two (Texas Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway) occurred in endings that featured an onslaught of late-race cautions. What more would another restart be when the end of the race was chock full of them?
But for the other six races, a lazy caution in the last handful of laps (by a car that wasn’t going to win) interrupted a long run that completely upended the way the race was going to play out. Three of the six races saw a late caution interrupt a run to the finish of at least 100 laps, while all but one of the yellows interrupted a run that was at least 50 laps.
For Richmond, last night marked the second straight Cup race where the entire final stage had run green until a caution was brought out with 2 laps to go.
| Race | Green Flag Run Before OT | Caution that Forced OT |
| Richmond (March) | 159 laps | 2 to go (Larson spin) |
| Martinsville (April) | 189 laps | 3 to go (Nemechek crash) |
| Kansas (May) | 56 laps | 6 to go (Busch spin) |
| Nashville | 51 laps | 2 to go (Cindric spin) |
| Indianapolis | 29 laps | 3 to go (Busch crash) |
| Richmond (Aug.) | 159 laps | 2 to go (Stenhouse crash) |
All six races had their unique storylines playing out as the laps ticked down, but alas, they were all for naught.
While the overtime restart at Kansas Speedway in May proved to be a barnburner, with Kyle Larson prevailing over Chris Buescher by 0.001 seconds in a four-wide photo finish at the stripe, four of the six proved to generate considerable controversy with how they ended.
In the first Richmond race in March, it appeared that Denny Hamlin hit the gas early and jumped the final restart over Martin Truex Jr.
At Nashville Superspeedway, the field could not stop crashing and running out of fuel in a five-overtime finish that took 31 extra laps to complete.
At Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the field began crashing and running out of fuel once again, and the race ended under caution as Ryan Preece’s immobilized car ran out of gas and was unable to…
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