Nascar is a growing and evolving racing franchise that honors and values its young Nascar drivers as much as it does its current and old heroes – and that is the way it is supposed to be – a growing sport needs new talent with fresh blood in the pipelines. Let’s take a look at the young Nascar drivers and possible championship winners of the near future:
Jeff Burton was 21 years of age when he came into the “Nationals” scene in his father’s Busch car and it took a whole five years for this young Nascar driver to get his first chance at a Cup car. And it was eight years later in 1996 when he was racing in a fashion that was capable of winning and being considered a contender in the Championship.
Simply compare that to the young Nascar driver Joey Logano who is just 18 years of age and has already locked up a ride with Joe Gibbs Racing team – that has 3 supreme level Nascar titles under its belt.
But Burton has his own views on this subject and says, “The way that I did it, I think, was better than the way it's done today. Me having time to grow up as a racecar driver, but more importantly as a person, I think was better than throwing a kid 19, 20 years old into this. I'm not saying it's wrong doing that, I just think it served me personally fine to do it the way I did it”.
It is a common opinion among the Nascar family that Logano is a rare talent and he has proven his abilities on the track. Is it right or wrong to have him behind the wheel and racing at such high levels? Well, right and wrong is a relative term and for the elite organizations it means more big bucks – and that’s usually what matters.
Another young Nascar driver is Ricky Stenhouse Jr. who has been racing since age 14 and is Roush Fenway Racing’s up coming bright stars. In the year 2007 this young Nascar driver drove for Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) in the United States Auto Club National Sprint Car and USAC National Midget Series – this is where he caught the peoples eye and made a name for himself. He bagged two five midget wins and two sprint wins and went on to become “Rookie-of-the-year” in the USAC Nationals.
James Buescher is yet another rising Nascar driver. He became the youngest winner of the ARCA RE. After doing smashingly well in 2007 he has jumped into a hectic racing schedule for 2008 in which he is to participate in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, ARCA RE/MAX Series, The Nascar Camping World East Series, the Hooters Pro Cup Series and the Bilzzard Late Model Series. For the 2008 season James has teamed up with Braun Racing for the Nascar Nationwide Series. In a very short span of time this young and talented Nascar driver has managed to display his enormous racing talents in various aspects of the driving sport.
Trevor Bayne is an exciting young Nascar driver as well. In 2005 he drove his heart out to win 12 wins, 14 poles and19 top 5s in the Allison Legacy campaign to become the series national champion. He won rookie of the year in the USAR Hooters Pro Cup Series. Bayne looks forward to carrying on his success in the nationwide series.
These are just a few of the Nascar young Nascar drivers that look promising – looking at the wealth of Nascar driving talent that is coming up, one cant help but think that Nascar is going to be just as interesting (if not more interesting) 3-5 years from now.
