Ross Chastain becomes NASCAR’s third first-time winner in 2022. Who’d have thought it, and who could be next?

First, it was Austin Cindric at the Daytona 500. Then it was Chase Briscoe at Phoenix Raceway. And on Sunday, it was Ross Chastain.

Chastain, known for being a watermelon farmer and coming up the NASCAR ranks with lower-funded teams, won his first career NASCAR Cup Series race at Circuit of The Americas. It was the maiden victory for Trackhouse Racing — the second-year team owned by Justin Marks and Pitbull.

Every winner this season is under 30 years old. The other three victorious drivers in the first six races of 2022 are all from Hendrick Motorsports, including last year’s series champion Kyle Larson, William Byron, and Alex Bowman.

Throughout the 2010s, it felt like NASCAR was talking up a storm about their future stars. The industry saw names like Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace, and Kyle Larson work their way up the stock car ladder while veterans such as Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. called it a career. It seemed like the future could be bright despite losing tons of star power, but no one has a crystal ball. It was just hope that someone could become the new face of American motorsport.

The last decade has been a transitional period for the sport, and many things changed; the business model of owning a team, the race format, the championship format, NASCAR leadership, and of course, the drivers.

In the last 12 Cup races, there have been four first-time winners. Wallace captured a historic victory at Talladega Superspeedway six months ago, and since then, Cindric, Briscoe, and Chastain have followed suit.

Like Bowman and A.J. Allmendinger, whom he beat for the COTA triumph, Chastain had, in some ways, a similar path to the Cup level. They weren’t carried up the ranks with the same optimism Elliott, Blaney, Wallace, or Larson had. All three of them started with teams that can’t typically contend with the juggernaut race organizations of the sport.

When Allmendinger was a Cup rookie, he was fresh out of Indy car racing and signed with Red Bull Racing. And they were BAD. Allmendinger failed to qualify for half the races in 2007. He then drove for Richard Petty, briefly for Roger Penske, and eventually, JTG Daugherty Racing to stay relevant. Today, he is a weekly contender in the Xfinity Series with Kaulig Racing and gets to run a partial schedule on the Cup side. He is capable of winning any time NASCAR visits a road course.

Then there is Alex Bowman. The Tucson, Arizona native raced for Robby Benton in the 2013 Xfinity season and then moved up to BK Racing the following year to become a Cup rookie. He was essentially a no-name, and he ran in the back of the field every week, which is also what he did in 2015 when he drove from Tommy Baldwin Racing.

But Dale Earnhardt Jr. saw his potential and gave him several Xfinity opportunities with JR Motorsports. He performed well — well enough to be Earnhardt’s substitute in the No. 88 Cup car when he was sidelined for concussion symptoms in the second half of 2016.

In 2018, Bowman became the full-time driver of the No. 88 for Hendrick and won his first race at Chicagoland Speedway in 2019. He’s now a regular at the front of the field and has proven himself not a hack (although Denny Hamlin might disagree.)

Chastain drove for JD Motorsports for several years, and well, he was only as fast as the horse he was riding. Johnny Davis’ team is a mid-pack Xfinity squad. Although it has given opportunities to other eventual Cup drivers such as Ryan Preece, Landon Cassill, and Garrett Smithley, it’s not an ideal place to demonstrate your talent.

But Chastain learned while he was a driver there. He took lessons from his eventual team owner, Marks, about how to handle the road courses and improve his craft overall. And then he earned his chance to race with Chip Ganassi Racing as a full-time Cup driver in 2021. For years, he kept himself at the track every week, and it finally paid off.

“I got the Xfinity Series in 2015, and I didn’t know how to turn right at all, and that was when Justin was in the series quite a bit on those tracks,” Chastain said. “I would go to him. I knew him from the start of my career in 2011 with Stacy Compton, and I just kept racing. I didn’t really have any great success at it, but it was just laps and racecraft, and it all came together today.”

Everyone has had a unique path making it to the Cup Series. Five years ago, it’d have been hard to believe anyone could see Chastain, Bowman, and Allmendinger going for a Cup trophy on the final lap at a road course. Yet here we are.

“There is no right or wrong way to do this. You see guys every year take a different path,” Chastain said. “If you don’t have the resources to go rent or get in, or you’re not hired to drive something really good, and in the lower series, it’s just the economics of this sport.”

There are still several drivers on the grid that are due to break out soon. Tyler Reddick has been a contender almost every week, just as Chastain has, and it feels like his maiden win will come sooner than later.

Christopher Bell, Erik Jones, and Cole Custer have all won, but they haven’t quite shown their full potential yet. Daniel Suarez started on the front row at COTA, won Stage 1, but he is still looking for his first Cup win.

The future is now for NASCAR, and its under-30 club is beginning to come into its own. Three first-time winners in six races doesn’t typically happen in any type of motorsport, but NASCAR has been fortunate to have it happen, and it’s a sign that despite the slides in fan attendance and television ratings over the last few years, the future truly is bright.