Golden oldies: youth dominates NASCAR, but this season is proof there is room for the over-40 set in the truck series.(NASCAR)(National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing )

Old age and treachery beats youth and talent.

How many middle-aged men have clung to that mantra while wheezing through basketball or jogging? In NASCAR, such talk is at a crescendo as Baby Boomer drivers try to muffle the incessant noise about the Young Guns.

Yet in the past six years, there have been only two over-40 champions in NASCAR's top three series--Dale Jarrett won the Cup championship in 1999, and Ron Hornaday Jr. won the Craftsman Truck Series in 1998. In 2003, Cup champ Matt Kenseth was the graybeard of the three series champions--at 31.

This season, there's hope for the salt-and-pepper generation truckers. Oh, there are hotshots such as defending series champ Travis Kvapil (28) and Carl Edwards (24). But among the points leaders are a handful of guys for whom 40 is in the rearview mirror. Atop the list, for now, is 44-year-old Dennis Setzer, who seems to have been hanging around NASCAR forever, waiting for his once-in-a-lifetime shot.

Setzer and the No. 46 Morgan-Dollar Chevrolet team finished just nine points behind Kvapil last season. Then Chevrolet, feeling pressure from newcomer Toyota, stepped up its truck series commitment--including a full 2004 sponsorship for Morgan-Dollar. Team owners Rob Morgan and David Dollar moved their shop from Hennessey, Okla., to the NASCAR capital, Charlotte. They added veteran local crew members and Richard Childress engines.

"We were a great team last year, but we're tremendously better right now," says Setzer, who leads 47-year-old Bobby Hamilton by 64 points and Edwards by 166. Setzer has finished in the top five at Martinsville, Mansfield (Ohio), Memphis, Milwaukee and St. Louis--all the kind of short oval track he excels on. But superspeedway wins at Lowe's and Texas are a huge step forward for the No. 46.

"That's the RCR power, the new GM wind tunnel, the new talent, a wealth of new information," Setzer says. "All of a sudden we're big-track racers. The new kid on the block (Toyota) made everyone step up."