Legacy Motor Club’s Surprise Move To Toyota In Nascar Should Really Be All That Surprising

Jimmie Johnson has been known for many things in his career. Chief among them: he’s a seven-time NASCAR Cup champion, and a winner of 83 NASCAR Cup races, including wins at some of the Crown Jewels of NASCAR like the Daytona 500 (he won two) and four Brickyard 400s at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

He’s won all those NASCAR Cup races with one team and with one manufacturer, Chevrolet. Johnson retired from full-time NASCAR racing at the end of 2020. He took a turn with the IndyCar series with Chip Ganassi Racing who fielded Hondas in that series, but returned to NASCAR this year as co-owner of the now re-branded Petty GMS Racing which was formed in 2021 from what was then Richard Petty Motorsports and GMS Racing.

It was somewhat of a surprise that Johnson would return to NASCAR as a team owner, but not surprising that the team he would buy into fielded Chevys.

What was surprising was the announcement this week that the team, now known as Legacy Motor Club, will be leaving the Chevrolet stable at the end of this season, and moving to Toyota.

Though when you hear Johnson’s reasoning behind the move, it really isn’t all that surprising. Hendrick is the most successful team in NASCAR’s history and currently fields four Chevys in NASCAR’s top series and has been campaigning the Bowtie brand since 1984. In that time, they’ve scored 295 wins, the most in NASCAR history, and 14 Cup titles.

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To say that puts them as Chevrolet’s favorite team might just be the understatement of the year.

“There’s no way to get around my 20 years at Hendrick and being in the catbird seat,” Johnson said shortly after the announcement. “At Hendrick Motorsports what we amassed at the 48 car and the success that we had and kind of the sway we had not only within the manufacturer, but within Hendrick Motorsports itself.”

Now with Legacy as a Chevrolet brand the team, and Johnson, are getting lost in the crowd. And that’s affecting the team’s performance on the track.

“A lot has changed since I left the sport,” Johnson said. “New car, the way technology is distributed throughout. It’s a new game and coming back in and just having a new lens or a clear lens, a clean sheet of paper to work from in a new capacity as an owner you know, I just have to look at the decisions, we have to look at the decisions we make with that respect.”

He said it’s all about building a base for the future with his new team, one anchored by Toyota.

“This is a foundational piece for us to build off of,” he said. “To have a deep alignment and a deep partnership with the never changing horizon and NASCAR and what’s out there ahead of us.”

Whether it’s the right decision, and what it will mean for the future of the team isn’t something Johnson wants to speculate about. He can only look at the present to determine the future.

“You know, certainly within the framework we exist under in GM,” he said. “You know, we are a partner, not officially a key partner.

“We acquire engines from the collaborative group, and then we also pay for a technical alliance that we have with RCR (Richard Childress Racing), and we’ve had a great relationship there. But, you know, there’s, there’s no way around it. We’re not in that top pecking order. “

Chevrolet fields 18 teams currently, Toyota now fields six, four with Joe Gibbs Racing and two with 23XI Racing. With the addition of Legacy that count will move to eight, and perhaps more importantly for Johnson and the team:

“We’re up on equal footing with 23XI and with Joe Gibbs Racing. And you know, that’s big. That’s real.”

With the move, Legacy will no longer be lost in the pack. Instead, they will be on equal footing, at least that’s what Johnson hopes. Right now, however, everything is still in the future.

“I’d say at this point it’s unclear,” Johnson said. “I mean, over the course of the season, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of change. We certainly have our perspective in the shoes we’re walking in now, but we’ve not had a chance to, you know, put on the other shoes and see what that world looks like, and, and we won’t until the end of the year.

“You know, we’re excited for the future, but once again, very focused on the present. And as we get into the off season, we’re going to work our tails off to learn the new system, to learn all the new faces and people, and to show up in Daytona as ready as possible.”

And in the end Johnson, in his new role, hopes his team is no longer just another face in the crowd.

“Our deep alignment in 24 and beyond with Toyota,” he said. “Puts us in a very strong position to control our own destiny as an organization.”