NASCAR's trigger fingers nearly spoil another Cup Series finish

Tyler Reddick won the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway after rain postponed most of the event to Monday morning, earning his second Cup Series win of 2024.

It wasn't without some drama at the end, though, as Reddick had to hold on through two late restarts that should never have even happened.

Martin Truex Jr.'s minor contact with the wall brought out the caution flag with only a handful of laps to go, setting up the first of what eventually became two overtime attempts when Ross Chastain spun during the first one.

Most of the time, NASCAR will keep the race green after contact as insignificant as Truex's. Of course, most of the time, such contact doesn't occur with a prime opportunity to re-rack the field for a mad dash to the finish. On a weekend in which two different drivers flipped on the backstretch, and only a week after Austin Dillon intentionally wrecked multiple cars for the win in Richmond, race control's trigger fingers showed a disgusting lack of regard for driver safety.

NASCAR's "overtime" rule (in which the race is extended if a late caution would otherwise force it to end under the yellow flag) is controversial enough on its own, but at least it's understandable — fans deserve to see a proper race to the checkers. That said, it's not an excuse for race control to exploit that rule for entertainment purposes, giving other drivers an opportunity to steal a win when the race was already all but over.

All Reddick had to do before the caution for Truex was simply cruise around for a few more circuits. He put himself in that position by taking the lead on the track and driving away, beating everybody else completely fair-in-square. He shouldn't have needed to then win the race two more times afterwards, just because a driver got loose and brushed the wall.

2024 has been the year of the overtime finish in NASCAR. Nine different races have gone past the scheduled distance, including each of the past three. One of those races, the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 30, featured five(!) different overtime attempts. On many of those occasions, the races ended with jumbled finishing orders that were not even remotely representative of driver performance throughout.

It's fun and interesting when a race finishes in that manner every once in a blue moon, especially when it's been a lackluster event in need of a climactic ending. When it happens every week, though, it begins to be more of an annoyance to fans who value fairness, and especially so when it's so completely avoidable.

Thankfully, the right driver still ended up winning at Michigan. But next time, NASCAR needs to just keep the race green.