Now Fred, not to disagree, but I disagree.
The caution coming out at the end is why the green/white checkered rule came out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green-white-checker_finish
NASCAR throws the caution when bad wrecks happen. If you watched the Bud Shootout the weekend before, NASCAR threw out a caution for no reason when the field got spread out. (None of the camera crews could ever 'find' the debris...') However, on Sunday, NASCAR just threw the rules out the window and decided not to have a caution despite their own 'rules' and precedents in such matters. It was the same on Friday when they didn't penalize Johnny Benson for passing under the yellow line.
So after listening to a week of Nascar screaming about rule violations from teams, then NASCAR throws out their own rules so they can have an 'exciting' finish for the TV crowd.
Did you see Gilliand hammer it all through the infield after crashing into Biffle? It was absolutely nuts, and that type of thing happens when you don't have a caution.
It was just great to see that on the 6th anniversery of Earnhardt's death, very little has changed....
Or, the new rule is that, on the last lap, there are no rules...