NASCAR’s young talent comes to the forefront at Michigan

Conventional wisdom suggests that a race featuring a difficult rules package emphasizing talent would greatly favor drivers with years and years of experience who possess the know-how to best adapt.

On some level that notion proved correct with Joey Logano, a full-time driver in NASCAR’s top division since 2009, winning Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway. He deftly managed a new aerodynamic rules package that made cars wickedly loose and on the verge of spinning out, to earn his first victory of 2016 and 15th of his career.

Though Logano certainly qualifies as experienced, his win along with Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson finishing second and third, respectively, signifies the youth movement NASCAR is undergoing. Despite his vast experience, Logano is 26 years old; Elliott, a rookie, is all of 20; and Larson, in his third season, is 23.

The average age of Logano, Elliott and Larson is 23, making the trio the youngest top-three finishers ever in a NASCAR premier division event, breaking the previous mark of 24.7 set in a 1951 race.

“It’s cool to see the future is here,” Logano said. “And it’s fun for me. Shoot, I’m usually the youngest guy by a long shot, so it’s fun to be racing for the win with some guys that are close to my age up there racing for the win.”

The sport’s future is making their presence felt this season, and doing so at a very opportune time. NASCAR currently finds itself in a generational transition, as mainstays Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart either have retired or will do so at the conclusion of the current season, and stars such as Kevin Harvick (age 40), Jimmie Johnson (40), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (41) and Matt Kenseth (44) are all exceedingly closer to the tail end of their careers than the beginning.

To fill that void NASCAR needs new headliners to emerge. For a group to assert themselves as household names just as Gordon, Stewart and Earnhardt once did.

“There’s some good people coming in,” Kenseth said May 15 after narrowly beating Larson and Elliott for the win at Dover. “I think as a driver and the race fan part of me and as somebody that cares a lot about the sport, that makes me feel good that you see people in the pipeline that are going to be there and be really competitive and put on good shows like that for years to come.”

Although not old enough to rent a car in most states, Elliott has already fulfilled the expectations that came with being the son of a NASCAR Hall of Famer and Gordon’s handpicked successor to wheel the iconic No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports car.

Through 15 races in his freshman season, Elliott has finished 10th or better 11 times -- only Kurt Busch (13) and Kevin Harvick (12) have accumulated more. Elliott has already surpassed Gordon’s five top-five finishes he totaled a year ago, and is on pace to break the modern-era record for top five and top 10s by a rookie.

“You don’t get hired by a team like that unless you’re good,” Earnhardt said. “I didn’t expect him to struggle.

“He’s been in so many scenarios. If you look at his career over the last four or five years, he’s been through it all. Certainly learned a ton, got a real good attitude, really calm and doesn’t get excited about much.”

If there is a criticism of Elliott, it’s that he’s far too hard on himself. Routinely he beats himself up for forgivable mistakes -- he blamed himself for not winning at Michigan due to missing a gear shift on a restart with 47 laps remaining. That hiccup cost him the top position and handed the lead to Logano, who never relinquished it.

“You can’t do dumb stuff and expect to win,” Elliott said. “That’s just the way life is. That’s certainly the way this sport is, and I did dumb stuff (Sunday), so can’t expect to win.”

Similar to Elliott, Larson jumped to NASCAR’s highest tour facing considerable expectations. With an ability to quickly acclimate to racing any variety of cars, Larson’s talent has long drawn comparisons to Gordon and Stewart, as all three have extensive sprint car backgrounds.

And like Elliott this season, Larson took NASCAR by storm during his 2014 rookie campaign coming close on several occasions to earning a first-ever victory. An underwhelming 2015 and slow start to this year dampened Larson’s luster some, but in recent weeks he’s regularly been on the cusp of breaking through.

Larson was running in the top five at Kansas Speedway when a daredevil move by Denny Hamlin failed, triggering a crash that collected Larson and others. He finished a close second to Kenseth at Dover International Speedway, was leading the All-Star Race with two laps remaining when Logano passed him and placed third on Sunday.

“You’ll see a big change in the next six or seven years probably with some of the veterans leaving the sport and lots of new guys filling their seats,” Larson said. “It’s exciting to see.”

But as promising as Elliott and Larson may be, it is Logano who is the standard-bearer among NASCAR’s next generation.

Of the three, he is the only one to have recorded a Cup victory and at 26 has yet to reach his prime. A scary proposition considering Logano won a series-best six times last season and advanced to the 2014 championship finale with his title hopes coming undone not by driver error or a lack of experience, but via a miscue by his pit crew.

Once viewed as a top-rated prospect that failed to reach his potential, Logano has undergone a career resurgence since joining Team Penske three years ago. No driver has won more races (12) since the start of the 2014 season and he is firmly established not as a star on the rise, but a bona fide championship contender.

“I’m eight years into this thing,” Logano said. “I’ve been doing it for a while, which it definitely plays into my hand at this point, going through the struggles and maybe getting thrown into a situation too young and too soon and when I wasn’t prepared for it, and going through all that has really changed me as a person and helped me kind of look at every race situation maybe a little bit different than I used to.

“Now, I’m able to use that for my advantage and I’m still only 26 years old. I’ve still got plenty of time left.”

That combination of experience and youth manifested itself at Michigan. Logano managed the precarious conditions superbly, leading 138 of 200 laps to score a dominating victory. And with Elliott and Larson in tow, a resounding message was delivered on Sunday.

“The future of NASCAR is present and it’s going to be big,” Logano said. “It’s amazing.”