When you're my age, halfway between puberty and social security -- OK, so at 44, I'm closer to the latter -- you have to look a lot harder to find heroes you can relate to.

It's easy to find stars to look up to when you're a kid. At that stage in our life, we had several, if not dozens, of athletes to which we pledged our allegiances. We'd collect their bubblegum cards, chase them down for autographs, hang their posters on our walls and dream about how we would one day emulate them.

But when you hit middle-age, the heroes of your youth are usually in the waning days of their careers, if not already retired.

It's around that same time we start thinking of our own mortality and how a life that was so agonizingly slow when we were younger, has suddenly become a life that spins by so fast it seems we're 25 one day and 45 the next -- with 65 on deck.

But that has not been the case lately if you're a Winston Cup fan. Age is definitely not proving to be an obstacle to winning. In a year that started out as the season of the "young guns," it's the old-timers that have recently been stealing the glory.

That's why, if I'm walking around with a puffed-out chest and sucked-in gut, you can attribute that to 40-something guys like Bill Elliott, Mark Martin, Ricky Rudd, Dale Jarrett and Sterling Marlin. Their exploits on the track this season have given me a new outlook on life, as if I found the Fountain of Youth.

I'd even include Michael Waltrip in that group. Even though he turned 39 in April, Waltrip has been chided and questioned about his age and effectiveness so much in the last couple of years -- in spite of winning last season's Daytona 500 -- that he would fit perfectly into the group.

In the year of the young guns, it's the middle-aged veterans who are showing that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks. While drivers like Elliott, Martin, Rudd, Marlin and Jarrett know their best years are behind them, they're finding new ways to win. While they may not have the kind of skills they had 10 or 15 years ago, they've honed the instruments they still have into precision mechanisms.

While people have talked so much about youngsters like Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson, the 2002 campaign has become one where experience has overtaken raw skills.

Don't believe me? Look at the results of the last 10 races, starting with the Coca-Cola 600 in May. From that point on, seven of the 10 winners have been between the ages of 39 and 46.

Need more proof? Look how drivers like Busch, Newman and Kenseth have dropped off the pace somewhat, while guys like Elliott and Rusty Wallace have continued to climb upward. Heading into Sunday's race at Watkins Glen, N.Y., six of the top-11 drivers in the standings are over 40.

When guys like Elliott, Jarrett, Marlin and Martin win a race, it makes us fellow old-timers feel a bit younger.

Forget the young guns, I say. We'll leave them for Generation X, Y or Z -- or whatever the current crowd of teens and 20-somethings are calling themselves these days.

The recent performances of guys like Elliott, who has won the last two races in convincing style, as well as the fact the second half of the season is when veterans shine the most, holds the promise that what most of the young guns did earlier this season could very well be nothing but a distant memory by the time the season ends in November.

When the final checkered flag drops after the season-ending race in Homestead, Fla., don't be surprised if the winner is someone like Elliott, who won his first race in seven years at that same track last season; or Marlin, as he potentially wraps up his first championship; or Wallace, as he puts the wrap on his best season in years.

But try and respect your elders of horsepower and make sure to leave enough room for their canes as they make their way from behind the wheel to the winner's podium, OK?

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.