Double-File Restarts to Start at Pocono

So much for this "powerless crusade", huh?

NASCAR announced on Thursday that they would officially be starting the use of double-file restarts for the Sprint Cup Series this weekend at Pocono Raceway -- a move that will surely raise the excitement and unpredictability of every single restart the series sees.

It's certainly a rule change that is years overdue and one that, hopefully, will allow more drivers to battle for a race win without backmarkers getting in their way.

For starters, let's discuss the old format for restarts.

NASCAR would take all of the lead-lap cars and put them in the outside lane when preparing to resume the race after a caution flag. In the inside lane, cars that were one lap down would line up in the order of first the number of laps down they were and then their position.

The theory behind it was to allow cars that had fallen off the pace a chance to race past the leader on the restart to get a lap back if the caution flag flew again.

That idea pretty much went out the window when NASCAR instituted the rule to prohibit racing back to the start/finish line at the time of caution and created the "free pass" rule to allow the first car one lap down an automatic pass around the leader under caution.

While there certainly aren't many statistics to back it up, seemingly very few drivers ever actually passed the leader during a green flag run and stayed there at the point of the next caution to get a lap back the 'hard way'. Most just battled for the free pass position.

However, having all of those cars on the bottom of the race track -- generally a track's preferred groove in the corners -- created an unfair advantage for competitors on the lead lap. Those lapped cars didn't just magically disappear on the restart which meant a car that started in fifth-place really lined up as the tenth car on the race track. It's not always easy to pass cars -- even lapped ones -- and so the leader had a distinct advantage if he could get ahead of that first car a lap down.

To compound the problem, the undisturbed air at the front of the pack provided the lead cars more downforce than ones in the back, allowing the front cars to drive away much quicker because of better handling and less traffic to deal with.

But now, all of those problems are gone.

NASCAR will now line up, for every single restart with any amount of laps remainin, just like it does for the start of a race based on the current running order. Additionally, the race leader will have the option of starting on the inside or outside lane for the restart, while the rest of the field will line up with odd-positioned cars on the inside line and even-positioned cars on the outside line.

A positive side effect of this that I had looked over before is that lapped-down cars will also be helped. Just as the leaders are jockeying to be in first place, the lapped cars are trying to earn the free pass spot. Instead of being strung out on the inside line with lead-lap cars slicing through them, each lapped-down driver will be placed in the same area on the grid for the restart.

NASCAR also made a move to prevent cars at the "tail-end of the lead lap" from starting ahead of the leader. As was the case just last week at Dover, the leaders all pitted while several lapped-down cars didn't. The old rule kept those lapped cars bunched between the pace car and the leader, but now, NASCAR will wave around any lapped-down car that chooses to not pit during a caution if the leaders do.

Those cars will also be credited for making up a lap.

If you're a race fan, you've got to be ecstatic about this change. The advantages to the competition side are seemingly endless.

No longer will a lead car able to jump out to a big lead because of a lapped cars late in a race, and it'll bring even cars from 8th or 10th right back into the mix for the lead. Heck, it might even change some pit strategy because drivers will know that they might not have as much ground to make up.

And what happens if your favorite driver is a lap down? He's got a much better chance of either 1) getting the free pass or 2) getting waved around by remaining on the track during pit stops.

Me? I'm not ecstatic. I'm damned giddy.

This is a change NASCAR needed to make, and more importantly, is a complete buck of the longtime NASCAR train of thought that was reasoned by "well, that's how we've always done it."

It's a good day for NASCAR fans, and you know what? It might make 500 miles at Pocono a little more exciting.