Some of you may not have experienced this yet, but as you get older, occasionally you’ll find yourself looking around and saying in certain circumstances, ‘man, they keep getting younger and younger’.
While it’s impossible for Senior Citizens to get younger and younger, the retirees, at least in NASCAR, are.
Aric Almirola’s announcement this week, that 2022 would be his last year as a driver, at the ripe old age of 38, hasn’t put a new low on the retirement age (Carl Edwards likely has that at 36), but it continues a trend of drivers stepping away, at least, a full half-decade before their predecessors.
Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Jimmie Johnson, all stepped away between the ages of 42 and 45. For life-style reasons and for health reasons.
The generation they replaced normally kept driving until, at least, their late 40s. Many because they wanted today, some because, financially, they had to.
Are we going to see more and more drivers step away in the late-30s? If they keep bringing them to the highest levels of the sport at 20 years old, it’s possible. Heck, Harry Gant didn’t run his first full-season in Cup until he was 40.