NASCAR fans, the media and NASCAR officials have been clamoring for reasons why there are so few caution flags this season compared to recent years.

There are fewer caution flags because there are fewer wrecks, but why are NASCAR's top drivers wrecking less than before?

And is that good or bad for the sport?

It's good for the drivers and their teams, but the end result is more long, green-flag runs, and that has led to some less-than-thrilling races.

In the last nine races, there have been five or fewer caution flags in seven of them. In five of those, there were just one or no wrecks.

Even the short tracks have featured safer, cleaner races, with just five caution flags at both Bristol and Richmond and only one single-car spin at Richmond.

So what gives?

Are NASCAR's top stars suddenly much better drivers than they were a year ago, or the year before that?

That's Kyle Busch's simple explanation.

"You've got the best drivers in the world out there each and every weekend," he says. "We all feel like we know what we're doing. We don't have to run over each other anymore to pass."

Or is it simply a matter of drivers finally getting a good feel for the current Sprint Cup car, which was a bear to drive when it hit the track full time in 2007?

Are drivers just now figuring how to drive it, and their teams just now learning how to set it up to make it easier to drive?

Denny Hamlin says that's part of the reason.

"At the beginning, these cars were a tremendous handful to drive," he said. "Obviously we saw some wrecks because of it, especially on restarts."

But Hamlin also points to another, more compelling reason.

He contends that drivers are simply being more cautious and more careful this season because of the new points system NASCAR implemented last year.

"I think everyone is so concerned with points nowadays, you know if you wreck and you finish in the 30s, you're going to take 10 races to get that back," Hamlin said after Sunday's Coca-Cola 600, which featured just five caution flags, four of them for debris on the track.

NASCAR made a radical change to its 30-year-old points system last year, switching from the traditional system that featured a three- to five-point separation between finishing positions to a system that awards one point per position, or a 43-to-1 format.

The theory was that the new system would make the points standings tighter, creating a closer battle to make the Chase and for the championship. That part worked last year as Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards battled to a tie, with Stewart winning the title on a tiebreaker.

The new system also was supposed to create closer racing by making each position on the track more valuable.

But did the system inadvertently make drivers race more carefully and, as a result, less aggressively?

Did the new system force them to think more about points racing than racing for the lead, or the win?

Hamlin, for one, thinks so.

"I think everyone's just a little bit more patient on restarts, as crazy as that sounds," he said. "It's just not as wild on restarts as it used to be a couple years ago. Everyone is minding their Ps and Qs, trying to get the best finish out of their day, knowing the one thing you can't overcome in a race is a crash."

As the drivers have learned in the past year, overcoming a crash or a bad finish is much harder under the new points system.

Several drivers who got off to bad starts last season—Greg Biffle, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, Jamie McMurray, Joey Logano—never recovered and were out of Chase contention in the first 10 or 12 races of the season.

Of the drivers who made the Chase last year, only Jeff Gordon was able to overcome a slow start. Even Hamlin almost missed it, failing to crack the top 10 in points and needing a wild-card berth (for race wins) to make it.

Stewart and Edwards, meanwhile, made the Chase and then were near perfect in the final 10 races. Edwards had nine top-10 finishes in the Chase, with a worst finish of 11th, for an average finish of 4.9, a record for the 10-race playoff.

Stewart had one bad race (25th at Dover), but overcame that with a record five wins in Chase races.

"It used to be that in the Chase, you knew you always had a mulligan, everyone was going to have a bad race," Hamlin said. "I don't know if you can do that nowadays. There aren't any wrecks, you have to count on someone really blowing up to have a bad day. That's really the only thing that can take someone out of the running."

Hamlin, who is third in the standings, said drivers watched those two scenarios play out last year and learned that they have to be more conservative this season.

"I think everyone just recognizes the points system and sees how it works," Hamlin said. "Second year on it. We know if you finish in the 30s, it's almost like not even showing up. Five points, that's not much."

So what does NASCAR do?

Does it make more changes to the points system or the Chase to try to spice up the competition again?

Does it look closer for debris on the track, throwing more caution flags to bunch up the field and force drivers to race more aggressively?

Both would be a mistake. Changing the points system back, or changing it again, would be even more radical than changing it the first time.

And NASCAR officials already get enough heat from competitors and fans for throwing questionable caution flags.

NASCAR's only real course of action at this point is to let the season play out and see if the action doesn't pick up as the Chase draws near.

As the series gets closer to the 26-race cutoff for making the Chase, drivers will get more desperate—for points and for wins.

That should lead to more aggression and more heated competition. That, in turn, should lead to more caution flags, which should generate closer competition and even more aggressive moves.

In the meantime, fans must be patient and hope the action heats up soon.