NASCAR: The aging veterans have one problem in common

Throughout the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, several veterans have seen forgettable seasons while watching their younger competitors take over.

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season has seen plenty of different winners, 13 through the first 23 races to be exact. While some veterans have won, others have not. In fact, more than half of the 13 different winners are over 30 years old.

But this list includes surprise winners such as Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell and Stewart-Haas Racing driver Aric Almirola.

The veterans who haven’t won are the ones who had been most expected to win. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin remain winless after combining for 16 victories in 36 races last year.

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Roush Fenway Racing’s Ryan Newman, another driver over the age of 40 who made the playoffs just two seasons ago, is set to be replaced behind the wheel of the #6 Ford next year.

Generally speaking, the 2021 season hasn’t been too kind to the drivers in their 40s. Part of it is definitely just that: age. It’s not a secret that as drivers grow older, their lives change away from the race track as they settle down with families and have other obligations away from racing. So it’s not a shocker to see a veteran finally start to slow down on the track.

But certain veterans seem to have found a common problem on the track that has slowed them down.

That one big on-track problem? A bad crash.

Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. has credited a crash while testing at Kansas Speedway as the one that ultimately led to his retirement.

After tying Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough for sixth place on the all-time Cup Series wins list with his 83rd, Jimmie Johnson had a bad crash at Pocono Raceway the following weekend. He never won another race in three-plus seasons after recording 16 consecutive seasons of multiple victories.

Last year, Newman had a bad crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500. He hasn’t even come close to winning since. While he hadn’t won since 2017 to begin with, he generally runs up front in the superspeedway races. But in five superspeedway starts since that accident, he has just one top 12 finish, a sixth place effort at Talladega Superspeedway last October.

Due to a tire failure, Hamlin had a bad crash in the closing laps at Indianapolis Motor Speedway later in the season while leading. He did win three races later in the year and leads the point standings this season, but that lead has dwindled by more than 100 points and he could very well end up with his second winless season in the last four years.

This year, Harvick, 2020’s winningest driver, experienced two bad crashes at Richmond Raceway and Circuit of the Americas. He even called the Circuit of the Americas race in the rain the most unsafe thing he has “ever done in a race car by a lot”.

So whether it’s just Father Time catching up or a bad crash or a combination of both, NASCAR’s veterans do not seem to able to take the hits they once did, hits that are a product of the sport.