Tony Stewart sounds off on NASCAR's youth movement: 'It's not complicated'
RICHMOND, Va. - Tony Stewart wishes NASCAR featured more outspoken drivers like the wildly entertaining Clint Bowyer and fewer who are only a handful of years removed from being teenagers.
The sport struggling with generally declining TV ratings and attendance always seems to be looking for the next big thing, which includes young drivers racing at the top in the Cup Series. The problem, Stewart said, is some are too young, too inexperienced and lack an "expressive" personality needed to attract people and build fan bases.
"It's not complicated," Stewart told For The Win and NBC Sports at Richmond Raceway. "When I watched, I watched because they were heroic to me. The drivers were heroic, what they were doing was heroic. Now, you've got guys that their mom has to drive them to the race shop because they're not 16 and don't have their driver's license yet, but they're driving a full-size race car.
"So it's like, how do you expect a 30-something-, 40-something-year-old man to look at this person and say this is heroic what they're doing? It's not."
Last month in an interview with The Virginian-Pilot, Stewart said some of NASCAR's issues are because there aren't enough personalities on the race track, particularly among younger drivers who haven't "legitimately" earned their opportunity. He said instead, some of the drivers are out there because they have "rich fathers and deep pockets that put them in race cars."
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Like before, the Stewart-Haas Racing team owner didn't mention any drivers by name, so it's unclear if he's referring to a specific group or NASCAR trending toward younger drivers.
One example is the NASCAR Next program, an industry initiative that works to identify a select group of up-and-coming drivers determined to have the potential on and off the track to eventually be a star at the sport's highest level. Eligible drivers must be between 15 and 25 years old. The first class was in 2011, and the program's alumni include Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Daniel Suárez, Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr., Kyle Larson, Erik Jones and William Byron.
When it comes to teenagers in Cup cars, Stewart is exaggerating a little bit.
Byron is currently the youngest full-time Cup Series driver at 21, followed by Jones and Matt Tifft, who are both 22. There are 18 Cup drivers in their 20s, including reigning champion Joey Logano (28) and fan favorite Elliott (23).
William Byron with his crew chief Chad Knaus. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
"(The) push of the whole generation next idea - next shouldn't be 12 to 16 year olds," Stewart continued. "The generation next should be: Who's the next guys that deserves to be here and have earned their right to be here? Not because, oh, we like them."
Stewart said he doesn't necessarily know what the solution is. In an already expensive sport that continues seeing big-name sponsors leave, he understands the logic behind backing a driver who's bringing money into the situation over someone who has more talent.
"That's the direction our sport's going, and that's screwed up," he said. "If that's where we're going, we're in bad shape."
Stewart's four Cup Series drivers are on the older side of the age spectrum. Kevin Harvick is 43, Bowyer is 39, Aric Almirola is 35 and Suárez, new to the team this season, is the youngest at 27. SHR's two second-tier XFINITY Series drivers, Cole Custer and Chase Briscoe, are 21 and 24, respectively.
Stewart explained he doesn't think there needs to be a minimum age or experience level before drivers are eligible to race in the Cup Series. But he called what appears to be a cultural shift simply "a bad idea."
It's worth mentioning that Jeff Gordon was 21 in his first full-time Cup season, while Kyle Busch was 20 and Logano was just 19.
When asked if the sport had been operating this way for a while, Stewart returned to the argument about selecting a driver with talent or who paid their dues over one with money.
"Listen, I didn't have the right look; I still don't have the right look," he said. "But I never paid a dime to do what I'm doing. There's not a driver in this field that hasn't paid for their way in here, and that's the culture. That's totally screwed up.
"And the whole generation next thing, you look at the criteria for that. Is that really how we want to set our fields? Is that how we want to do this? I think they got a relook how they do it. I honestly believe that's part of why we're losing so many people."