Cautions at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Should we expect a lot cautions for tomorrow’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway? Or will we get a lot of long green-flag runs?

Let’s look at what’s happened in the past.

Cautions

Las Vegas has had its share of races with a lot of cautions. The highest since 2000 was in 2009, with 14 cautions. But Las Vegas has also followed the general trend of fewer cautions, as shown in the graph below.

Races over the last few years have had many fewer cautions. Since 2013, the most cautions in a race has been six. The spring race last year had only two cautions and those were both for stage ends.

Caution Laps

The numbers of cautions are of interest, but the number of laps lost to those cautions is also relevant. Accidents that are severe, or that involve a large number of cars, often take more laps to clean up than a single-car accident or spin.

For example, we’ve got three races in a row with 6 cautions, but they took up 28, 36, and 34 laps.

Since 2013, the average number of caution laps at a spring Las Vegas Race has been 23. Most of the accidents at this track in the last five years have been single-car accidents or two-car accidents. There have also beenmore cautions for thinks like oil or fluid on the track than at some other tracks.

If this race follows the trend, expect to be able to settle in for some long green-flag runs. I would expect to see between 2 and 6 cautions at the spring Las Vegas race and somewhere between 15 and 30 caution laps.