NASCAR's youth movement continues with Ross Chastain's win at COTA

By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer

AUSTIN — All six Cup winners in 2022 have one thing in common.

And it’s the same thing that the winners of the final six Cup races in 2021 have in common.

They are all under 30 years old.

After several years of NASCAR promoting a youth movement and then young drivers Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson winning back-to-back titles, the past dozen races — featuring a streak of under-30 winners that is the longest in series history — have left no doubt that the kids are all right.

It all started when 28-year-old Bubba Wallace won at Talladega in October. That was followed by a 29-year-old Larson winning the next three races. Then Alex Bowman, 28, won Martinsville before Larson captured the title at Phoenix.

Austin Cindric, 23, won the Daytona 500, followed by Larson at Fontana, Bowman at Vegas, 27-year-old Chase Briscoe at Phoenix, 24-year-old William Byron at Atlanta and 29-year-old Ross Chastain on Sunday at Circuit of the Americas.

Kevin Harvick, who at 46 years old is the senior full-time driver, has seen many of these drivers hone their racing craft over the past several years. Only Cindric and Briscoe have fewer than two years of Cup experience. And the new Next Gen car might give younger drivers a bit of an advantage.

"There's just a lot of things that are a lot different, and sometimes having less experience is probably going to be an easier transition just because you have less time in the car," Harvick said.

"But look, we have a ton of really, really talented drivers that have been in Cup now for three or four years. They're not rookies anymore. They’re ready to race and are doing a good job."

They also are with talented teams. All of the Hendrick Motorsports drivers are under 30. Two of Penske’s three drivers are under 30. Stewart-Haas has two under 30. Of the 39 drivers in the Cup race Sunday at COTA, 21 were under the age of 30.

Joey Logano, who has more than a dozen years of Cup experience and is still just 31 years old, knows what it's like to be a young driver needing years of experience to challenge for wins.

"There's a lot more of them right now," Logano said of the youth movement. "And the young guys ... are four or five, six years into their careers, to where they’re good now. The generations before, there was just me — I was the only one that was in the 20s, for the most part.

"And now there's a lot more of them. And those guys even have the experience now. I think that's why you see those numbers kind of changing. The kids are good."

Logano then quickly corrected himself.

"Not really kids — they're not really that much younger than me," he said. "It’s going to happen because there's a lot more of them, and they're getting better."

While the young drivers are veterans, they don’t necessarily feel it. Byron says he still feels 24.

"I still feel like the experienced guys, like Harvick and Denny [Hamlin], they still have a leg up in terms of what they've seen happen before," Byron said.

"But with a new car, I think it's just a clean slate for everyone. So it's really about who hits on it, driver-wise and crew-wise, first."

Byron agreed that young drivers might have fewer preconceived notions, and that could help them when trying certain setups with the new car.

Kurt Busch, 43, said that when Jeff Gordon had success in the 1990s in his 20s, he set the stage for team owners to hire young drivers. Most of those drivers, except for Busch and Harvick, are now retired, and the newest crop of young drivers is thriving.

Busch added that preparing for races now focuses more on driving on a simulator than seat-of-the-pants practice time, and it took some of the older drivers a while to embrace the technology when what worked for them so long worked so well.

"It's easier now because the barriers are down, and opportunities are there," Busch said. "Simulation work is taking up more and more of the prep time. And that's something you have to adapt to as a veteran because I didn't do as much.

"We used to have two hours of practice, and we would get our cars dialed in. Now we have 20 minutes."

While drivers do have theories on why the youth has been so successful in recent races, Kyle Busch — now an "elder" at age 36 — had a more blunt assessment.

"They're getting the job done when it matters most, and that's the last lap, taking home the checkered flag," he said.

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Thinking out loud

NASCAR made the right decision in removing the curbs in the esses at Circuit of the Americas.

But why wasn’t that decision made and communicated to drivers before they got to COTA? Kevin Harvick noted that drivers wasted significant time in the simulator because they negotiated those turns differently without the curbs.

The decision also put NASCAR in position to make judgment calls throughout the race, confusing both drivers and fans. If NASCAR is going to do that, it needs to communicate the rules much earlier than the race weekend, not only so drivers can prepare but also so fans have more time to digest and understand the rules.

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Stat of the day

The last time there were three first-time winners within the first six races of a season was 2001. This year’s first-time winners: Austin Cindric, Chase Briscoe and Ross Chastain. And 2001's: Michael Waltrip, Kevin Harvick and Elliott Sadler.

They said it

"I know he is going to be upset with me, but we raced hard, both of us, and he owes me one." — Ross Chastain on AJ Allmendinger after bumping him to secure the COTA win

Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!