These guys aren’t kidding.

When he won the NAPA 500 at California Speedway last month, 26-year-old Jimmie Johnson became the fifth Winston Cup rookie to win a race in the past four seasons. Before 1999, no rookie had won a Cup race in the previous 11 seasons.

Jimmie Johnson, 26, leads Matt Kenseth, 30, out of Turn 4 at Sunday's Coca-Cola 600. Below, Ryan Newman is one of 11 drivers 31 or younger who could be competing against each other for many years.

Then, on May 18, Ryan Newman won The Winston, joining 2000 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. as the only drivers to win the all-star race in their rookie seasons.

Kurt Busch didn’t win as a Cup rookie last season, but he did at Bristol this season at the age of 23. If he wins again before Aug. 4, 2003 which seems highly likely he’ll join Richard Petty, Jeff Gordon and Junior Johnson as the only drivers in NASCAR history to win more than one Cup race before turning 25.

Busch finished second in last year’s rookie of the year competition to Kevin Harvick, who, like Johnson, is a 26-year-old California native.

Though he has had a relatively slow start to his sophomore season, Harvick won twice last year in Winston Cup while also racing to the Grand National series title. His success under the remarkably difficult circumstance of taking over the late Dale Earnhardt’s ride helped him become the first Cup rookie to be named the Richard Petty Driver of the Year by the National Motorsports Press Assn.

Johnson, Newman, Busch and Harvick are among a group of 11 drivers 31 or younger who figure to be competing against each other for victories and championships for years. Drivers in that group have won seven of this season’s 12 Winston Cup points events, and seven of them finished in the top eight in The Winston.

That has left little room for such stars as Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, Dale Jarrett, Ricky Rudd and Bill Elliott, who have dominated the spotlight for a racing generation.

Could the focus be shifting too quickly?

Yes, 30-year-old Matt Kenseth is second in the points standings, with Busch right behind. But Sterling Marlin, 44, has been out front since the year’s second race and veterans Mark Martin, a winner Sunday at Charlotte, and Wallace are also in the top six.

Still, it’s hard to ignore what drivers like Tony Stewart, who just turned 31, Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr., 27, have done over the past three-plus seasons since Stewart was rookie of the year in 1999.

Whereas many veterans came into the sport knowing how to build their cars from the ground up, some of today’s young drivers are more versed in the modern technology that now drives the sport. Newman, for instance, studied vehicle dynamics while getting a degree in interdisciplinary engineering from Purdue. He finished his studies at UNC Charlotte after moving South to go racing.

The veterans point out, correctly, that the young drivers making such a big name for themselves these days have some definite advantages.

“When I ran my first race in Darlington, S.C., (in 1978), I set the car up myself and drove the truck down there,” said two-time Winston Cup champion Labonte, Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate. “Years ago that’s how most people started out. There weren’t the big teams. There were only a few top teams that won the races and had the established drivers and everybody else was kind of in the same boat. Things have changed.”

In almost all cases, these new kids on the block acknowledge the quality of the opportunities they’ve been given.

“You feel that you have the potential and know you’ve worked all your life and built skills and abilities, but you just don’t know what your capabilities are until all of the situations are right,” Johnson said.

“There’s no arguing with the fact that I’m driving the same equipment of the No. 24 (Gordon’s) car. I put a lot of credit in that department.

“There’s just a lot of support there to keep us out of trouble and on the right track.”

And they’ve had a lot of success. When Johnson won at California, he talked about having goose bumps on the final lap. Busch, who ran second that day, knew the feeling.

“It’s what you always dream about when you’re a racer coming up through the ranks,” Busch said. “What every racer dreams about is winning at the Winston Cup level. Winning at the Truck series level and the Grand National level, that’s part of growing toward Winston Cup. You want to be the elite, you want to be the best of the best.”

No matter how old you are.