diff --git a/lib/datadog/tracing/contrib/rack/middlewares.rb b/lib/datadog/tracing/contrib/rack/middlewares.rb
index fc2662c95ca..241db18a82f 100644
--- a/lib/datadog/tracing/contrib/rack/middlewares.rb
+++ b/lib/datadog/tracing/contrib/rack/middlewares.rb
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ def call(env)
             # so that all spans will be added to the distributed trace.
             if configuration[:distributed_tracing]
               trace_digest = Contrib::HTTP.extract(env)
-              Tracing.continue_trace!(trace_digest)
+              Tracing.continue_trace!(trace_digest) if trace_digest
             end
 
             TraceProxyMiddleware.call(env, configuration) do
diff --git a/spec/datadog/tracing/contrib/rack/distributed_spec.rb b/spec/datadog/tracing/contrib/rack/distributed_spec.rb
index 9fdafb4ef71..71e918b94ed 100644
--- a/spec/datadog/tracing/contrib/rack/distributed_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/datadog/tracing/contrib/rack/distributed_spec.rb
@@ -69,6 +69,8 @@
 
   shared_examples_for 'a Rack request without distributed tracing' do
     it 'produces a non-distributed Rack trace' do
+      expect(Datadog::Tracing).not_to receive(:continue_trace!)
+
       is_expected.to be_ok
       expect(span).to_not be nil
       expect(span.name).to eq('rack.request')