The driver leading the point race during much of the first half of the season was 45-year-old Sterling Marlin, a veteran in his 17th full season of competition. The point race by midseason produced an even mix of drivers in the Top 10-five were over 40 and five were 31 or younger, including relative youngsters Gordon, Johnson, Stewart, Kenseth, and Busch.
Busch compares it to being a high school student-which he was just six years ago. "You're always going to have the elder statesmen and the younger statesmen," he says. "It's similar to high school where you've got freshmen coming in (and) they think they know everything; they're going to get on the varsity football team and do their own deal. Then, of course, you've got the veterans there who know how things are and they're going to put them in their place. You're always going to have that confrontation between old and young, I guess, and it's a fine balance all the time just getting along with everybody."
Muhleman sees the sport going through a normal transition and not a profound, landscape-altering trend toward younger drivers, as Marlin, Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, and other over-40 drivers near the end of their careers.
"It's always going to come back to who can win," says Muhleman. "The guy who's got five or 10 years, but not 20, under his belt and has got real talent and a good team is always going to be dominant. They're going to win with all things being anywhere near equal.
"It's a cycle, really, that sometimes has not been as obvious as other times. Right now it's a very obvious thing. These guys are going to get old. In five years, they'll be five years older. I don't mean to be facetious, but Jeff Gordon is 30 and he's not included with the young guys anymore. I mean, it seems like yesterday (Dale) Earnhardt and everybody was calling him 'Wonder Boy,' and now, while he's not 'Pops' yet, he's not ever mentioned as a younger driver. Isn't that amazing?"
Are today's youngsters reaching Victory Lane at an age younger than drivers from the past? A glance at the top six drivers on NASCAR Winston Cup's all-time win list compared with five of today's young drivers shows both groups winning at the same approximate age.
Richard Petty, number one on the win list, was 22 when he claimed his initial win. David Pearson was 26; Bobby Allison 28; Darrell Waltrip 28; Cale Yarborough 25; and Dale Earnhardt 27 (28 days before his 28th birthday).
The average age of the top six all-time winners when they first won in Winston Cup? 26. The average age of Kurt Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, and Elliott Sadler when each won his first race? 25.
Jeff Gordon, seventh in all-time wins, was 22, same as Petty, when he won his first race, and he was the Winston Cup champion at 24. Tony Stewart was 28 when he first won a Winston Cup race in 1999, and Matt Kenseth was 28 when he notched his first win in 2000. In 1987, Davey Allison was 26 when he won two races, becoming the first rookie since Earnhardt in '79 to score a win.
If the past is any indication, today's young drivers have a lot to look forward to when they reach their 30s. Petty won 129 races from age 29 to 38, and Waltrip won all three of his driving titles between the ages of 34 and 38.
All of the drivers on the all-time win list, in fact, enjoyed the bulk of their success in their mid-30s, with the exception of Pearson, who put together one of his best seasons in 1976, at the age of 41, and Allison, who won his only Winston Cup title at age 45, in 1983.
Yarborough won consecutive championships in '76, '77, and '78-when he was between the ages of 36 and 38. Earnhardt was still winning races at age 49, but the bulk of his success came between the ages of 34 and 44, and he turned 36 the year he won a career-high 11 races, in 1987.