Stage breaks are back for a road course. After two tame races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Watkins Glen, NASCAR elected to add stage breaks back into the races again. How much of a role will that play in Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN)?

I think unfortunately a lot.

The best car may not win anymore.

This year, the fastest cars won since the stage break cautions didn’t fly. 4 of the 5 road races were won by drivers leading the most laps. Last year, it was quite the opposite. In 5 of the 6 road courses run last year, the only laps led by the eventual winner all occurred in the final stage.

The reason for the flip? Stage breaks.

With stage breaks, some cars stay out on track for points. Some pit for track position. More times than not, you don’t have a luxury of scoring points and winning the race.

“I don’t think you can go for stage points from 40^th (actually 37^th),” Larson said of his race strategy. “The silver lining may be that you can short the stages (by pitting early) and get your track position that way to be up front at the end of the race. I think that would be the plan, I guess, going forward.”

Last year, none of the road course races saw a driver that had won finish in points in Stage 1. This year, they’ve finished 23rd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 2nd.

In Stage 2 a season ago, they finished: 8th (COTA), 4th (Sonoma), 10th (Road America), no points (Indy) and 8th (Watkins Glen), no points (ROVAL). This year in Stage 2: 1st (COTA), 7th (Sonoma), 3rd (Chicago), 2nd (Indy) and 1st (Watkins Glen).

See how much it’s changed?

Last year and before, it was becoming the norm for teams to elect to pit right before the stage would end to give up points for track position. They automatically knew when two cautions would fly so would plan accordingly. It took the strategy aspect out of these races.

Now, they know when two cautions are going to fly.

With really 8 of the 12 drivers going for points on Sunday and still being able to make the next round on points, who takes points for the stages but maybe puts themselves in the pack to potentially take a win away?

I look at someone like Tyler Reddick. He’s the only driver to have won multiple times on road courses with this Next Gen. He’s on the pole. He should in theory run away with Sunday’s race. But, NASCAR doesn’t want that and it’s quite honestly a shame.

He has to pick which route does the No. 45 Toyota team want to go?

“I got lucky,” said Reddick, who was fastest in Group A in the opening round of qualifying at 103.207 mph. “I had one of my dirtiest laps I’ve ever had in practice. But this is exactly where we need to be on Saturday.

“I knew I had to go out and qualify here to give us some options.”

Same for Kyle Busch. He starts 5th. He has to win to realistically get by to the Round of 8. They may elect to punt on stage points for track position.

Which ruins a battle of Reddick vs. Busch for a possible win. They both may have varying philosophies.

Just because we have stage breaks back again doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be a clean race either. Be careful what you ask for here. The first 104 laps of last year’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 was as tame as an elimination race could possibly be. The debris caution with seven laps left changed thing.

Without cautions for stage breaks this season, Indy had just 1 caution for 3 laps. Watkins Glen had 1 for 4 laps. Last year, until inside of 10 laps-to-go, we had just two cautions and both were for stage break and it didn’t spice up the show.

Which is why I feel this race could go either way. Points are too valuable to risk damage from ruffling feathers but you can’t risk not to move someone out of the way with points at a premium.