“Those stats are old”: Denny Hamlin’s former crew chief gives his take on the prime age of racers ‘10 years from now’

Chris Gabehart, the former crew chief of NASCAR Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin, recently took to social media to weigh in on a unique stat trend regarding a driver's performance by their age. The former Joe Gibbs Racing crew chief believes the stats are "old" and will be drastically different 10 years from now.

FIVE WIDE Sports, an X user, recently posted a thread of some of the "wildest" NASCAR stats in history. One of them included Greg Biffle being 34 years old in his rookie season in the Cup Series. This sparked Xfinity Series driver Jeb Burton to respond by giving his opinion on what age drivers hit the peak of their careers.

"I’ve always been told the best racers are at their prime at 38-41 years old," he wrote.

This led to Gabehart commenting below Burton's post as he believes a driver's prime will be much younger a decade from now than it is today. He wrote:

"Those stats are old. 10 years from now, for your generation, that number will be in the low to mid 30's."

Gabehart became the crew chief for the #11 JGR Toyota, driven by Hamlin, in 2019. The duo kicked off their run together strong as Hamlin won his second career Daytona 500 in the season-opening race of 2019. Hamlin won five more races in 2019 and qualified for the Championship 4 race, where he finished fourth.

In 2020, Hamlin won another seven races under Gabehart and again qualified for the championship race. However, the Virginia native finished fourth among the title contenders. Hamlin made another Championship 4 appearance in 2021 after winning two races during the season, but fell short again by finishing third among the title drivers.

Hamlin and Gabehart stayed together from 2022-2024, but failed to make the championship race in all three seasons. They did, however, win eight races together across the three years.

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Racing insider said Denny Hamlin is in a "win now" mode after losing Chris Gabehart

On the heels of losing crew chief Chris Gabehart, motorsports insider Jordan Bianchi gave his thoughts on Denny Hamlin's racing future. After losing a "perfect" crew chief, Bianchi said the driver of the #11 is in a must-win scenario moving forward.

"He is almost a perfect crew chief in a lot of ways. And when you're thinking where's Denny Hamlin at in his career, I'm not calling Denny old because we're the same age, but the reality is the reality and he's [44]. You don't have a lot of runway left on your career. You're kind of in a 'win now' mode," Bianchi said on the Dirty Mo Media podcast.

Hamlin finished up his 20th full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2024. Despite 54 career victories and three Daytona 500 wins, he is still searching for his first Cup Series championship.