Wins of caution

NASCAR could make the lap that counts really matter

Relax, it wasn't your TV screen on the blink Sunday afternoon; the yellow hue was merely the fifth Winston Cup race to end under caution this season. And sadly, the most exciting thing of the last two laps was watching Tony Stewart toy with the back bumper of the pace car.

If you're scoring at home (and aren't all race fans?), that's 31 percent of this year's races that have ended under yellow -- and we're not even at the halfway point of the schedule. Even worse, four of the past six points race winners have taken the checkered flag under caution.

By comparison, five races ended under yellow in 2002 and only two in 2001.

The debate isn't over whether the relative youthfulness of the drivers is leading to more cautions. There will always be a mix of newcomers, novices and veterans in every Cup field. My argument is over the way races end -- at a speed that will get you run slap over on most interstate highways -- with the flagman simultaneously waving the checkers ... and that damn yellow rag.

Race fans can accept Mother Nature wreaking havoc; we may not like it, but after the initial rage has subsided, it's just one of them racin' deals drivers like to blame most everything on. But with all the tweaking of the rules that NASCAR is wont to do, isn't it time to address late-race crashes in relation to finishing the event under green?

The way late-race restarts are handled (single-file, in running order) was a welcomed change, and NASCAR could do itself a favor by red-flagging its current caution system.