Dr. Diandra: Are young drivers taking over NASCAR Cup Series?

No driver over age 30 has won a Cup points race this year.

I constantly warn against drawing conclusions based on only five races, but under-30 drivers also won the last six races in 2021. Kyle Larson accounted for four of those wins, while Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman each won one. Since the trend spans two seasons, we know that this isn’t due to the Next Gen car’s introduction.

Discussions about a youth movement started well before this year. From 2015-18, the average age of Hendrick Cup drivers dropped more than a decade: from 38.4 years 27.4 years.

On the other hand, the average age of the final four drivers in 2019 was the oldest ever at 38.5 years.

Let’s examine, then, the average age of full-time drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series. To include as much data as possible, I allow a driver to miss up to two races in a season to be considered a ‘full-time’ driver. That accounts for the occasional injury or suspension. I calculate each driver’s age as of that year’s Daytona 500.

Now let’s add the average age of winners using red dots.

If you see a correlation in this graph, let me know. I can’t find one. During the last few years — the height of our ‘youth movement’ — the average winner’s age was higher than the average age of the field. The exception is this year. Again, we’re only five races in and that’s not enough to do statistics on.

Averages are easy to calculate, but they don’t tell you very much. That’s a good thing to keep in mind if you’re putting together a fantasy team. For example:

Let’s start by looking from 2020-22, because that’s about as much data as I can put on a graph and not have it look like someone spilled a Funfetti cake mix. Below, I show the winner’s age at the time of the race won for the last