NASCAR Delivers New Stars With Young Edge

As Reed Sorenson reached for the microphone, Dale Earnhardt Jr. playfully slapped his hand and snatched it away.

Sorenson had to wait his turn.

But he might not be so willing to take a back seat on the racetrack. The 19-year-old Sorenson is one of several young drivers making headway in NASCAR’s lower ranks and taking advantage of the sport’s ongoing youth movement.

“I hope I’m leading the way,” the confident Sorenson said.

So far, so good.

Sorenson finished ninth and was the top rookie in the Busch Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway last Saturday, a race that featured several drivers expected to be part of NASCAR’s next group of “Young Guns.”

Drivers under 24 years old include Sorenson, Ryan Hemphill, Shane Hmiel, Blake Feese, Justin Labonte, Paul Menard, Brandon Miller, Boston Reid, Martin Truex Jr., and Jon Wood.

At that age, they make young Nextel Cup stars like Junior, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman seem over the hill.

“There’s more available talent than ever before,” said Lorin Ranier, who scouts talent for Chip Ganassi Racing. “We’d all like to hire Jeff Gordon and bring him to our team, but what’s the chances of that happening? Not very good. So what do you do? You start looking elsewhere. You can’t get the guy you want so you have to go out and find the next best thing.”

For Ranier, that means spending countless hours researching drivers and poring over results, hoping to find a young Gordon or Tony Stewart. He would settle for Kasey Kahne or Kyle Busch, both of whom had successful Busch careers and are now driving full time in the Nextel Cup series.

Ranier said that because of NASCAR’s popularity reaching an all-time high, more children than ever are picking up the sport -- and at a young age, too.

“Instead of playing baseball, a lot of kids are racing go-carts,” he said.

That gives NASCAR teams a larger talent pool from which to choose drivers. It wasn’t like that a decade ago, when NASCAR was much more of a family business. Fathers and sons, as well as brothers, could be found in almost any field.

“Everybody is looking for somebody who is the complete package,” Ranier said. “There are a lot of guys who are fast, but don’t have the right mentality or they can’t talk. You need the ones who are an exceptional driver, but are likable and has all the extra stuff you can sell.”