NASCAR for dummies

Anyway, onto some preliminary answers.  These are best-of-knowledge, good-faith responses that could be totally screwed up.  If somebody knows better, please chime in!

Q: How do they keep track of everybody's places for cautions?
A: (Note, I'm not totally sure on this one, but I believe this is correct.) Each car on the track has a designated NASCAR Official (referee) who is in charge of keeping track of one's position during the entire race (green flag, cautions, etc.)  These officials relay their information to the team to say "You beling behind Car A and in front of Car B", "You've been penalized a lap and need to wait", or "You're the 'Lucky Dog'. Take your free lap."  NASCAR officials also use instant replay to get things right or to make close calls.  (No challenge system though!)

Q: What's a free pass?
A: The free pass, whose recipient is commonly referred to as the "Lucky Dog", allows the first car that is 1 or more laps down to the leader to automatically regain 1 lap in the name of safety. The only caviat to this rule is that if you are the cause of the caution, you can't be the free pass recipient.

In order to fully understand this rule, you'll need to know a bit of history, so bear with me.  Up until the 2004 season, after the caution flag would be displayed, cars were allowed to continue to race until the leader passed the start/finish line.  For example, if the leader was in Turn 1 and a wreck happened behind him in turn 4, the leader had to race "through the wreck" to get back to the line.  This puts the damaged vehicle(s) (often stopped in the middle of the track) at a great risk of being plowed into and also doesn't allow emergency crews to assist until the rest of the field is picked up by the pace car (delayed emergency response equals greater risk to the driver).

A "gentlemen's agreement" had existed between drivers that when a caution came out, everybody would maintain their current position and often times the leader would slow-up to allow a lapped car to pass, prior to crossing the start/finish line.  However, more and more drivers were pressured by their teams (and sponsors) to take any means necessary to win.  This resulted in the demise of the gentlemen's agreement and things started to get very unsafe for the drivers of wrecked vehicles and the emergency crews coming to the aid of such drivers.

So by today's rules, as soon as a caution comes out, the field is automatically "frozen", such that nobody can advance or regress positions.  The free pass was established with this rule change in order to capture the spirit of the old gentlemen's agreement to allow the first guy a lap down to regain his lap.

Q: Why doesn't a teammate just cause a minor wreck in the "overtime" if his teammate has the lead?
A: Noting prevents such a scenario, except for the iron fist of NASCAR management.  The drivers are warned prior to each race that such shenanigans won't be tolerated and will be penalized with monitary fines, point deductions, driver/team suspensions, or some combination there of.

Aside from that, intentional wrecks detract from the spirit of a competitive race.  Due to excessive ticket prices, many fans can only afford to attend a single race in a season.  If you were in such a situation, would you really want to see a race end under caution because Car A spun Car B to help his buddy in Car C?

Also, the cars are expen$ive so the owners would probably not be too happy, despite the wads of cash they posess.

Feel free to ask away with other stuff that comes to mind!  I've probably got the answer, or can at least BS it to make it look like I do!