When Martin Truex Jr. won at Dover in April — the 11th race of the season — he broke a 54-race winless streak and became the first driver over 40 years old to win a Cup Series race in 2023.
When Truex won last week at Loudon, he joined an elite group of 23 other drivers who have won Cup Series races in the modern era (1972-present) while 43 years old or older. Truex was five days short of 43 when he won Sonoma.
Truex’s three wins put him high on the list of championship contenders — a markedly different situation than last year at this time.
The 2022 season
The first six Cup Series race winners in 2022 were all under age 30. The youngest, Austin Cindric, was just 23-and-a-half when he won the Daytona 500.
Despite the best efforts of veteran winners like Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick, the average age of winning drivers at the end of the season was just 30.8 years — the lowest since 2008.
Just seven of the first 20 races in 2022 (35%) were won by drivers over 30. That list includes Daniel Suárez, who was just 30.4 years old at the time of his Sonoma win.
Note that I use the driver’s age on the date of each race win for my calculation. My numbers may thus differ from those that use the driver’s age at the start (or end) of the season.
Here’s the age breakdown of 2022 winners after 20 races:
· Thirteen wins by drivers under 30 — with three of those 13 under 25.
· Three wins by drivers between 30 and 35 (Joey Logano and Suárez).
· One win by Kyle Busch, who falls in the 35-to- 40 bracket.
· Three wins by drivers over 40 (Hamlin and Kurt Busch).
The graph below shows the running average age of winning drivers for the first 20 races of 2022.
It’s poor practice to leave that much white space at the top of a graph. I did it because I wanted to plot the data for both years on the same y-axis scale to make it easier to compare with 2023.
Hamlin raised the average age by two years when he won the first Richmond race — but the average remained under 30. The 30-year-old barrier wasn’t broken until the 13th race of the season, when 42.8-year-old Kurt Busch won Kansas.
Later in the year, two consecutive wins by Harvick — the oldest driver in the series — helped keep the average above 30 years. The season ended with a 30.8 year winning driver average age.
The veterans rebound
It was tempting to interpret the dominance of younger drivers in 2022 as the first indication of a changing of the guard: One generation taking over as the other eases out.
Another theory was that drivers with more experience in the Cup Series had a harder time adapting to the Next Gen car.
The plot below shows the ages of this year’s winners to date.
In 2023 so far, there have been:
· Seven races won by drivers under 30 — with none under 25.
· Five races won by drivers between 30 and 35.
· Four races won by drivers between ages 35 and 40.
· Four races won by drivers 40 or older.
Last year, 65% of the winners at this time of the season were under age 30 and 35% were over age 30. In 2023, 65% of the wins were by drivers over 30.
There are also twice as many races won by drivers aged 35 and older this year than there were last year.
That distribution produces an average age for winners thus far of 33.3 years. In fact, this year’s average winner’s age has not dropped below 30 years.
Between 2009-21, the average age of winning drivers never dipped below 32.1 years. This year’s number is much more consistent with that, making last year look more like a blip than a trend.
Why was 2022’s average winner’s age so low?
The crop of young Cup Series drivers is talented. That helped lower the average age of winners — but it’s not the only factor.
Everyone is a year older in 2023. But that can’t account for this year’s average being almost three years higher than last year’s average.
William Byron is repping the young crowd this season with Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott missing races and still lacking visits to victory lane. If we exclude Byron’s four wins, the average age of winning drivers this year jumps by almost two years, to 35.2.
Drivers younger than 25 won three of the first 20 races last year. In addition to Cindric, Byron was 24.3 and 24.4 years old when he won his two races last year. No drivers younger than 25 have won this year.
But perhaps the largest contributor to the dip in the average age of winners is Joe Gibbs Racing’s struggles to adapt to the Next Gen car. Between Kyle Busch, Hamlin and Truex, JGR had the oldest driver lineup in the series in 2022. While Hamlin won twice, Kyle Busch won only the Bristol Dirt Race — and Martin Truex Jr. finished the season without a win.
Unlike many other sports, racecar drivers can continue to compete at much older ages. Slower response times — which everyone suffers as they age — are offset by experience and technology like driving simulators.
Truex has mentioned that being competitive requires 110% from the driver. His decision about retirement has less to do with getting “too old to drive” than time and energy — both of which also tend to decrease as one ages.
Whatever his decision, Truex has proven this year that the old saw about not being able to teach old dogs new tricks is wrong.
You can teach old dogs new tricks. It just might take them a tiny bit longer to master them.
