NASCAR Racing: cautions, larry mcreynolds, darrell waltrip

Question
I thought during caution laps there was no passing.  Yet as I watch I see cars passing and shuffling positions with some cars going all the way to the front, sometimes starting inside the lead car double file while everyone else is single file.  What are the rules about caution laps and restarts?  Thanks

Answer
Hi Louis,

The cautions are VERY hard to explain, and even the telecast announcers like Chris Myers, and Larry McReynolds and Darrell Waltrip can't explain it well. But i'll try.

Sometimes, the cars will be making pit stops when the caution comes out and that really messes up the field.  If a car...say 10th place, pits when the leader is still on the track and the caution falls...that person would get to start in front of the leader...but he is on the "tail end" of the leaders lap...for example if he pitted on lap 267 and the leader stayed out...he would start on the "tail end" of lap 267 while the leader behind him was starting lap 268. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but its a very hard concept to explain, and i never understood it fully until recently, and i've been a hardcore fan for years.

In a different scenario, if the leader through lets way...26th place pits during the caution, they will inevitably come out of the pits probably 3 wide, with only a slow motion camera to determine who was first across the line...so that is why sometimes you'll see cars shuffling positions, because the Camera people are telling them...ok you were 10th so line up behind the #17.  Then they'd tell the car who came across the line right beside him "ok you were 11th so line up behind the #88." So that is why sometimes they'll pass each other under caution and so forth. I don't know if ANY of this makes sense...

But i hope i helped some!
Coy Jordan