NASCAR's Mike Forde: Adding another stage to superspeedway races has been discussed

Mike Forde, NASCAR’s managing director of racing communications, said on Wednesday’s “Hauler Talk” podcast that the sanctioning body has discussed the possibility of adding a fourth stage to superspeedway races. Forde emphasized that it wasn’t “seriously discussed,” but brought up, nonetheless.

“Yes, we have talked about stage lengths for Daytona and Talladega,” Forde said. “Even going as far as — it hasn’t been seriously discussed — but adding another stage, period, so that there would be no concerns of you would have the stages short enough to where fuel conservation would be a waste of time. Obviously, we haven’t done that. There’s only one race with four stages and that’s the Coca-Cola 600.

“But stage lengths is something that was kicked around for specifically, superspeedways, and specifically, Daytona and Talladega. It seems like Atlanta is not really an issue, but yes, that is something that was discussed.”

As Forde mentioned, only one race — the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte — has four stages. At the very least, NASCAR appears to be open to adjusting the stage length of races at Daytona and Talladega.

What is wrong with superspeedway racing in NASCAR?

Modern superspeedway races have become a game of fuel conservation. We often see an entire pack running half throttle where passing is limited. It’s typically not until the very end of the race do drivers go on offense and run full throttle.

Following this year’s Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin called on NASCAR to fix superspeedway racing. He took issue with much of that race being spent with drivers two and three-wide saving fuel.

“The cars are way too easy to drive, they have way too much grip, way too much drag and what it does is it creates a great optic on TV that these cars are two by two, three by three, but ain’t nobody passing nobody. We’re out there just riding and saving fuel throughout the greater part of the race,” Hamlin said. “But NASCAR fixed it. They did throw a nice fuel mileage caution there with about 40 to go to make sure everybody could make it.

“We definitely should address it, I’ve said on this show now for years let’s not ignore that we have a superspeedway issue. And for my mental health, for my physical health — I just want us really to address superspeedway racing.”