Mark Martin's spotter warned him that there had been a spin on the frontstretch, but urged his driver to stay in the throttle -- still green, still green, still green. All around New Hampshire Motor Speedway, other drivers were hearing the same thing in their helmets.

A.J. Allmendinger's car had spun on the final lap, and was slowly rolling backward, and would eventually come to rest perpendicular to the track. But there was no caution, at least not until the leaders came barreling through Turn 4, bound for a start/finish line cloaked in smoke from the accident, and a disabled vehicle sputtering back to life.

It all happened very quickly, in a few tense and chaotic seconds. Running behind the leaders, Jimmie Johnson heard the same thing everyone else did, and kept his foot on the accelerator. Coming though the final turns, he saw the caution lights illuminated. But he also knew it was the last lap. No one was exactly sure where the final scoring loop, which decides the running order under caution, began and ended.

So he had what he termed a "quick argument" with himself. Throttle back, or race to the caution flag? Johnson made the reasonable choice, checking up -- racing parlance for lifting the foot off the gas pedal -- and pulling down to the inside of the race track. No one passed him.

But up ahead, where Martin, Denny Hamlin and Juan Montoya were battling for the victory, it was a different story.

"Granted they're in position to win the race," Johnson said Tuesday. "I saw Martin check up and the other two were still heavy in the gas trying to get to the stripe. I don't really want to blame anyone. I don't think it's fair to blame anyone. It's really tough.

"We're covering a lap there in 29 seconds, so 3 or 4 seconds to try and figure out what to do, that's a portion of a lap, especially coming off [Turn] 4 toward the start/finish line. We need to do a better job. Hopefully we all learned a lesson there. Hopefully NASCAR can look at throwing [the caution] a little earlier, and drivers certainly can check up."

It was a tremendous race Sunday at Loudon, and the finish certainly took your breath away, but not exactly for the right reason. It was honestly somewhat frightening, watching the leaders storm onto the frontstretch, with Allmendinger's vehicle sitting there just waiting to be T-boned. Fortunately, the No. 44 car fired and started to move just as Martin and Hamlin dove high and Montoya ducked low to evade it.

Fortunately, NASCAR's desire to let the finish play itself out and hold the yellow flag until the last possible moment didn't result in a needless, ugly accident that would have marred the opening round of the sport's playoff series.

But even so, it was a harrowing reminder of the bad old days when NASCAR tried to let drivers police themselves when it came to racing back to a caution flag, something that ultimately didn't work. After a spate of abuses -- most infamously Robby Gordon's passing of Kevin Harvick under caution at Sonoma, which while technically legal, was widely criticized by those inside the garage -- the antiquated "gentlemen's agreement" was scrapped six years ago this week, when for obvious safety reasons NASCAR officially banned racing back to the caution. The era of scoring loops had begun.

Then came Sunday, and the final lap in the first Chase race, and everyone feeding off the pressure and intensity and adrenaline that goes along with it. And what happened? We had racing back to the caution flag, something that was supposed to be done away with six years ago.

No question, confusion reigned. It was smoky, drivers were hearing that there had been an accident but that the track was still green, assumptions were made on whether the caution really had come out or would ever come out at all. The result, though, was the very kind of unsafe situation the rule change was designed to prevent. Even Martin, as classy and courteous a driver as there has ever been, admitted that he was going hell-bent for victory at the end.

Final Laps

Mark Martin paces the lead pack heading toward the finish line at New Hampshire, which is obscured by smoke and the slowed car of A.J. Allmendinger.

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When his spotter told him the caution had come out, his first instinct was to slow down. So he did -- until another car ran up the back of him. So he got back in the accelerator again.

"I knew the race was supposed to be over, but I've done lots of stupid stuff, and I didn't want to lose this race. I knew it was supposed to be over. So A.J. was getting going, and I felt pretty confident and comfortable about where he was going to stay, and so I picked up the speed, which is not really the thing we're supposed to do," Martin said Sunday.

"There was chatter on the radio, the race is over, and busting back and forth, and by the time we crossed the start/finish line, somebody said, 'Well, it was [over] before we got to the line.' So there were some things going on there, a little bit of confusion. You tend to kind of -- if you don't know for sure, you kind of race when the caution comes out on the last lap a little bit, and I had. I was under the impression that when a caution [was] called, the race was over. I don't think the guys gave up the race behind me, quite. So it caused a little bit of chaos."

To say the least. It was even worse back in the pack, where Johnson said drivers were struggling to check up in time to avoid a chain-reaction accident. Many drivers left New Hampshire believing that the caution should have been displayed earlier.

According to NASCAR vice president for competition Robin Pemberton, officials knew where Allmendinger's vehicle was in relation to the other cars on the race track, and waited as long as they could to try and not let it affect the end of the race. When the caution was issued, he felt drivers still had plenty of time to get out of the way. Kurt Busch would agree.

"They did handle it as well as they could have," Busch said Tuesday. "I had heard there was a crash on the front straightaway. My spotter came on the radio and said, 'It's still green. He's still sitting there.' The next communication I had, now I'm entering Turn 3, said, 'He's beginning to move, but the yellow is out.'

"They waited as long as they could to allow the wreck to clean itself up, to allow the cars to come back around and cross the start/finish line under green. But there was a moment in time when they have to throw the yellow to get cars slowed up in case the wrecked cars didn't get out of there in time. And I thought it was very appropriate."

Granted, this is a no-win situation for NASCAR. It throws the flag too early, and people are ripping it for getting in the way of the most exciting race of the year. It throws the flag too late -- which is what happened Sunday -- and people wonder if it's compromising safety.

This is, after all, a sport where competition and safety have sometimes existed as strange bedfellows, two elements that appear to run counter to one another yet must co-exist. There's keeping drivers away from harm.

And then there's "the show," the edge-of-your-seat, hint-of-danger thrill ride that people want to see. NASCAR tried to have both on the final lap at New Hampshire, but got neither. The race still ended under caution, with the same guy in front. People wondered if drivers had been put in a dangerous situation. It's a controversy that never should have happened.

And it leads to bigger questions. What if Montoya or Hamlin had passed Martin in that interval between Allmendinger spinning and the caution coming out? Then suddenly you have an argument over who the real winner is, similar to the ruckus involving Helio Castroneves, Paul Tracy and caution lights at the 2002 Indianapolis 500, or Martin and Harvick at Daytona two years ago. Nobody wants that.

Holding the caution flag was done with the best of intentions -- NASCAR wanted to give the fans their money's worth. No question, that's a noble thing to do. And while we're at it, let's issue another stern lecture to the non-Chase drivers, who need to lay off one another while the guys in the championship picture are duking it out. Evidently, that's why Marcos Ambrose was invited to the Sprint Cup hauler following the race.

But it's fantastical to think that everyone in the field is going to be patient and kind with chaos exploding all around them. Throwing the caution flag immediately, as soon as the No. 44 stops sideways on the race track -- especially a track like New Hampshire, which is narrow and only a mile long -- prevents so many headaches. It reaffirms a commitment to safety. It leaves no doubt as to who the winner is. Which is why, next time there's an accident on the last lap of a Chase race, that's what needs to be done.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer.