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Race stage
In sports, a stage, or leg, or heat, is a unit of a race which has been divided in several parts
for the reason such as length of the distance to be covered, as in a multi-day event. Usually,
such a race consists of "ordinary" stages, but sometimes stages are held as an individual time
trial or a team time trial. Long races such as the Tour de France, Absa Cape Epic or the Giro
d'Italia are known for their stages of one day each, whereas the boat sailing Velux 5 Oceans
Race is broken down in usually four stages of several weeks duration each, where the
competitors are racing continuously day and night. In bicycling and running events, a race
with stages is known as a stage race.

Contents
Bicycle race stage
Stages in flat terrain
Mountain stages
Medium mountain stages
"Breakaway" stages
Special rules
Rallying
NASCAR stage racing
Round-the-world sailing
References

Bicycle race stage

In an ordinary stage of road bicycle racing, all riders start simultaneously and share the road.
Riders are permitted to touch and to shelter behind each other. Riding in each other's
slipstreams is crucial to race tactics: a lone rider has little chance of outracing a small group of
riders who can take turns in the strenuous position at the front of the group. The majority of
riders form a single large group, the "pack" (in French, the "peloton"), with attacking groups
ahead of it and the occasional struggling rider dropping behind. In mountainous stages the
peloton is likely to become fragmented, but in flat stages a split is rare.

Where a group of riders reach the finish line together, they do not race each other for a few
seconds of improvement to their finishing time. There is a rule that if one rider finishes less
than three seconds behind another then he is credited with the same finishing time as the
first. This operates transitively, so when the peloton finishes together every rider in it gets the
time of the rider at the front of the peloton, even though the peloton takes tens of seconds, and
possibly even a couple of minutes, to cross the finish line.

Riders who crash within the last three kilometres of the stage are credited with the finishing
time of the group that they were with when they crashed, if that is better than the time in
which they actually finish. This avoids sprinters being penalized for accidents that do not

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accurately reflect their performance on the stage as a whole given that crashes in the final
three kilometre can be huge pileups that are hard to avoid for a rider farther back in the
peloton. A crashed sprinter inside the final three kilometres will not win the sprint, but avoids
being penalised in the overall classification.

Stages in flat terrain

Ordinary stages can be further classified as "sprinters' stages" or "climbers' stages". The
former tend to be raced on relatively flat terrain, which makes it difficult for small groups or
individual cyclists to break away from the peloton—there are no big hills to slow it down. So
more often than not, the entire peloton approaches the finish line en masse. Some teams are
organized around a single specialized sprinter, and in the final kilometres of a sprint stage,
these teams jockey for position at the front of the peloton. In the final few hundred metres, a
succession of riders "lead out" their sprinter, riding very hard while he stays in their
slipstream. Just before the line—200 metres away is about the maximum—the sprinter
launches himself around his final lead-out man in an all-out effort for the line. Top speeds can
be in excess of 72 km/h (about 45 mph). Sprint stages rarely result in big time differences
between riders (see above), but contenders for the General Classification tend to stay near the
front of the peloton to avoid crashes.

Mountain stages

Mountain stages, on the other hand, often do cause big "splits" in the finishing times,
especially when the stage actually ends at the top of a mountain. (If the stage ends at the
bottom of a mountain that has just been climbed, riders have the chance to descend
aggressively and catch up to anyone who may have beaten them to the summit.) For this
reason, the mountain stages are considered the deciding factor in most Tours, and are often
attended by hundreds of thousands of spectators.

Mountains cause big splits in finishing times due to the simple laws of physics. Firstly, the
slower speeds mean that the aerodynamic advantage gained by slipstreaming is much smaller.
Furthermore, lighter riders generate more power per kilogram than heavier riders; thus, the
sprinters and the rouleurs (all-around good cyclists), who tend to be a bit bigger, suffer on the
climbs and lose lots of time—40 minutes over a long stage is not unheard-of. Generally, these
riders form a group known as the "bus" or "autobus" and ride at a steady pace to the finish.
Their only goal is to cross the line within a certain limit—usually the stage winner's time plus
15% -- or else they'll be disqualified from the race (at the discretion of the officials; on rare
occasions a lead breakaway becomes so large that the entire peloton falls that far back and
would normally be allowed to remain in the competition to avoid having only a small field still
in competition).

Meanwhile, the lighter climbers hurl themselves up the slopes at a much higher speed.
Usually, the General Classification riders try to stay near the front group, and they also try to
keep a few teammates with them. These teammates are there to drive the pace—and hopefully
"drop" the opposition riders—and to provide moral support to their leader. Typically, the
leader will attack very hard when there are only a few kilometres to go, trying to put time into
his main rivals. Gaps of two and even three minutes can be created over just a few kilometres
by hard attacks.

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Medium mountain stages

In larger stage races, some stages may be designated as "medium mountain", "hilly" or
"intermediate" stages. These stages are more difficult than flat stages, but not as difficult as
the mountain stages. They are often well-suited for a breakaway (as described below).
Occasionally, the distinction between medium mountain and mountain in stage classification,
decided by race officials, can be controversial. The Giro d'Italia has had a reputation of
labeling selective, very difficult stages as merely medium mountain.

"Breakaway" stages

Lastly, a handful of stages each year are known as being "good for a breakaway"—when one or
a few riders attacks the peloton and beats it to the finish line. Typically these stages are
somewhere between flat and mountainous. Breakaway stages are where the rouleurs, the
hard-working, all-around riders who make up the majority of most teams, get their chance to
grab a moment in the spotlight. (The climbers will want to save their energy for the
mountains, and the sprinters are not built for hills.)

Special rules

In the big multi-day events like the Tour or the Giro, there is a secondary competition on
points (e.g. Points classification in the Tour de France), which tends to be contested by
sprinters. Riders collect points for being one of the first to finish the stage and also for being
one of the first three to finish an "intermediate" sprint. Sprinters also can get time bonuses,
meaning that good sprinters may lead the general classification during the first few stages of a
big multi-day event.

Rallying

NASCAR stage racing

In NASCAR racing, starting with the 2017 season, races in the top three national touring
series are completed in three stages, four in the case of the NASCAR Cup Series’s longest race,
the Coca-Cola 600.[1] A stage consists of normal green flag racing followed by a stoppage on a
designated lap signified by the waving of a green and white checkered flag, then a yellow
flag.[2] The top-10 finishers in each of the first two stages are awarded bonus championship
points. The points earned are added to a driver/owner's regular season points total, while the
winner of the stage receives an additional point that can be carried into the NASCAR
playoffs.[3] The stage lengths vary by track, but the first two stages usually combine to equal
about half of the race. The final stage (which still pays out the most championship points)
usually equals the other half.[4] The first driver to win a National Series race under the stage
race format was Camping World Truck Series driver Kaz Grala who won the season opener at
Daytona International Speedway in February 2017.[5]

Round-the-world sailing
Round-the-world sailing races are sometimes held over stages. Notable examples are the
Volvo Ocean Race, Velux 5 Oceans Race, Clipper Round the World Yacht Race and Global

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Challenge.

References
1. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20170126071358/http://www.nascar.com/en
_us/news-media/articles/2017/1/23/new-nascar-race-format-2017-announced.html).
Archived from the original (http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2017/1/23/n
ew-nascar-race-format-2017-announced.html) on 2017-01-26. Retrieved 2017-01-27.
2. NASCAR stars defend radical 2017 race format changes (http://www.autosport.com/news/
report.php/id/127871)
3. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20170312200543/http://www.nascar.com/en
_us/news-media/articles/2017/1/23/fast-facts-questions-2017-race-format-enhancements.
html). Archived from the original (http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2017/
1/23/fast-facts-questions-2017-race-format-enhancements.html) on 2017-03-12. Retrieved
2017-03-12.
4. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20170312200346/http://www.nascar.com/en
_us/news-media/articles/2017/2/16/race-stage-lengths-2017-schedule.html). Archived
from the original (http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2017/2/16/race-stage-
lengths-2017-schedule.html) on 2017-03-12. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
5. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20170312200806/http://www.nascar.com/en
_us/news-media/articles/2017/2/24/who-won-nextera-energy-resources-250-at-daytona-ka
z-grala-results.html). Archived from the original (http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-medi
a/articles/2017/2/24/who-won-nextera-energy-resources-250-at-daytona-kaz-grala-results.
html) on 2017-03-12. Retrieved 2017-03-12.

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