Aging racers taking final lap
Young drivers fill holes left by former stars
CONCORD, N.C. — Jamie McMurray once set a record at Charlotte Motor Speedway by winning his second career Cup Series start. Back for the 16th anniversary of that surprise trip to Victory Lane, McMurray is just another veteran at a career crossroads in NASCAR.
McMurray doesn’t yet have a job for 2019. Neither does AJ Allmendinger or one-time Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne. Kurt Busch won’t be back at Stewart-Haas Racing, and reigning series champion Martin Truex Jr. is a free agent because his Furniture Row Racing team is shutting down after this season.
Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler are retiring at the end of the season. Casey Mears never got his retirement tour.
That’s how it goes these days in NASCAR. The former “Young Guns” are now fighting to hang on to their rides.
The youth movement continued Friday when JTG Daughtery Racing introduced 27-year-old Ryan Preece as Allmendinger’s replacement. Later, Richard Childress named Daniel Hemric, another 27year-old, to Ryan Newman’s seat.
Both drivers have navigated a ladder system in which competitive opportunities can be few and far between. Some of those former “Young Guns” put together careers that have lasted 15 years or more. The latest crop has had to wait for seats to open, had to secure their own sponsorships and sometimes drive for free.
“Everybody says the path or whatnot of how we got here may not have been ideal, but at the end of the day, you did whatever you could with what you had,” Hemric said.
Hemric said he was hopeful the moves would inspire young racers in the market to keep going and trust their decisions.
NASCAR is full of blue-collar kids who scrapped to get to this level. Preece had a job in the Xfinity Series in 2016 but was never going to win in the cars he was given. So he gave up the seat. If he could get a few races in one of Joe Gibbs’ cars, he was certain he could win.
Preece got a four-race deal for 2017 and won his second start. It led to more races with Gibbs, another victory and a spot in the Cup Series next season. The path was Preece’s shot-in-the-dark at making it big.
With a scarcity of sponsors, cheaper drivers have become the norm. Hendrick Motorsports replaced Jeff Gordon with Chase Elliott, Dale Earnhardt Jr. with Alex Bowman and Kahne with William Byron. Bowman is the oldest at 25.
Meanwhile, drivers like McMurray have been left without a ride. He has been offered to drive the Daytona 500 next season then move into a leadership role. The offer is presumably to make room for Busch. After being dropped by Hendrick, Kahne is making this year his last.
“If you are going to fall down that hole of ‘money, money, money,’ you will never make it,” Preece said. “There were a lot of nights I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know what my future was going to be. I didn’t know if I could even make it to this level. I was going to try though. I was going to try like hell.”