NASCAR'S New Format Meant To Encourage "Stagewinning Moments"

With the 2017 NASCAR season fast approaching, and the Daytona 500 seeing the return or Dale Earnhardt Jr and the departure of Carl Edwards, NASCAR has decided in their "collective" information gathering between fans, drivers and track owners that this season  they would switch things up and have a new format and replace the word "chase" with the word "playoffs". After all, when you think of the end of any sports season, you think of the playoffs.

Now, here is the way I understand the new 3 stage format. Stage 1 and Stage 2 are the same, with a caution period in between. The last 5 laps before the stage ends they will close pit road, allow TV and probably radio coverage to take a commercial break, then come back and cover pit road stops. The way they leave pit road is the way they will line up for the next stage. The winner of each stage gets 1 point to go towards the end of the season. Simple, right?

Stage 3, or the "checkered flag" stage, will be the lesser of the 2 stages as far as laps are run. 5 points will be awarded to the race winner for the playoffs as well as the normal points for the race win. There will be no more points for leading 1 lap or the most laps. The way they assign how many laps each segments gets is up to each track, which is still being hashed out according to track presidents live David McGrath of New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a recent guest on The Wicked Fast Podcast. With races like his New Hampshire 301, one would think that stage 1 and 2 would be 80-90 laps (a typical fuel window), and the final stage would consist of 120 or so laps. It's a good thing Loudon is getting 2 more sets of tires for each team this year; they might need them. 

Here's what I don't understand. Are cautions during the 3 stages handled the same way for wrecks? What happens if there is a driver that tries to beat the pit road closing 5 laps before each segment? How are fans going to know how many laps are in each segment? Will that be advertised before each race? When the segments are over, with the point winners be displayed for that segment, and the race, and the "playoffs"? 

There are alot of people, I've heard, that think that this new format was designed for Dale Jr as he makes his return to racing. Still others think that it was a way to "Jimmie-proof" the playoffs. Fans are going to have to decide for themselves after the first 26 races if the new format is easy to understand, fun to watch and makes races into "stage winning moments"