Let’s roll back the decades, 24 years down memory lane, and Jimmie Johnson isn’t the force of NASCAR that we know today. He’s a relatively unknown driver in a #48 Hendrick Motorsports car at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, one that Allen Bestwick thinks is an upstart from Wisconsin. But when things finally unfolded, no one could have expected the driver NASCAR would find, did they? Johnson banged in a solid qualifying lap, and while the race did not have the fairytale ending everyone wanted, he had put himself on the map. Now, decades later, as Johnson closes down his 700th start, his team over at Legacy Motor Club is getting all the praise.
Johnson knows how difficult running a team is. At the end of last season, he said, “It’s been a journey. Where I stand today, I have learned so much in the last two years. The sport has evolved a bunch in the last two years. When you look at the first year and the competitiveness of our organization and how the sport continues to push forward and where the big teams are finding speed, how they are stacking 10 to 20 things to define a tenth of a second advantage. As time goes on, it’s more challenging to consistently compete at that level.” And things are certainly stacking up.
Legacy Motor Club has finally found its footing in the 2025 NASCAR season. After a year of growing pains and unmet expectations, the team is showing signs of quiet progress, especially on the intermediate tracks. It’s not the kind of leap that draws instant headlines, but a quiet fight in the background.
Pete Pistone and Brett McMillan spoke about this change that LMC has been showing. McMillan kicked things off when he said, “One team I see, Pete, that seems to be rising and looking pretty good on these intermediate tracks is Legacy Motor Club. You know, especially John Hunter Nemechek. They – I think it’s kind of quiet—they’re rising through the field.”
And this quiet rise was evident right from the Daytona 500, when Johnson scored a third place in the race as Byron and Reddick drew all the attention in front. And it’s been one of the themes with Erik Jones, too. Despite the stats not looking too different between 2024 and 2025, Jones has already raised his level. If we compare his performance between last year and this year up to this point, the driver has only finished at 12th as his highest finish, while this season, he’s broken into the top 10 more than once or twice!
But it’s not just Jones, is it? John Hunter Nemechek is turning into a force to be reckoned with. His average finish has already improved from 25.42 to 18.17 this year, and even though we’re not halfway across the season, Nemechek has already matched his points tally. His fifth position at the Daytona 500 was the perfect start to the season. But let’s be real. Did these changes happen overnight? Not at all.
As Pistone highlighted, “It’s funny that you said that because this is kinda what a lot of people thought we would get last year from Legacy Motor Club. When they made all those changes in the offseason, and know by their own admission that just did not work out. They’re kinda where I thought they would be, maybe a year ago, where you’re seeing good finishes. You’re seeing John Hunter up there, and he’s been pretty impressive. You’re seeing, obviously Erik Jones up there and, you know, how about Jimmie Johnson maybe making career start number seven hundred for legacy coming up Sunday in the Coke 600.”
If we go back to the middle of 2024, fans were left asking just what happened to Jimmie Johnson and Co. The team showed it could win races, but a sudden dip in form was apparent. And after making the bold move from Chevy to Toyota, they needed results. That’s when Johnson took up the mantle of racing owner and made sweeping changes, with massive overhauls. We’re talking changes in crew chiefs, engineers, and different people working on the cars.
Richard Petty summed it up best back in January, when he said, “We’re looking, really looking forward to it. We’ve had one year with Toyota, and now we’ve just redone the whole business of Legacy. We got the same drivers, but we got different crew chiefs, we got different people working on the car, we got different engineers. So, it’s really almost like starting with a new team. So, I think all of our people are excited about it. Have put the right people together in the right place. So, it’s gonna be exciting for us just because it’s gonna be like completely starting all over again.”
And let’s not forget a key piece of the puzzle, Jimmie Johnson himself. When he turned into the majority owner of the team, no one knew how it would have gone, but he’s just proved himself. He’s not just running things. He’s inspiring drivers, and the 700th Coca-Cola 600 start proves it. It is only fitting for Johnson to start his 700th race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, the place where he made his debut.
Jimmie reflected emotionally, saying, ” I’m like, dang, my first was at Charlotte and now my 700th will be at Charlotte. And so, you know, it’s put a lot more weight on it. And I found that now, you know, my starts are far in few between. And the experience I had going into the Hall of Fame, I am now reflecting and savoring my career in these moments that I have to be back in the car and experience the stuff. So I’m really excited for Charlotte and very thankful that, you know, it’s a big milestone event.”
The future’s positive for the team, and these NASCAR veterans are loving it. Let’s see what Johnson has to say about a dear rival.
NASCAR’s Kurt Busch announcement draws a happy reaction from Jimmie Johnson
In the years that Jimmie Johnson dominated the NASCAR Cup Series, one of the Busch siblings picked fights with the Cup Champion. “We’re in his head,” Kurt said in a 2011 interview. The rivalry had been brewing for some time, and at Richmond that year, things would seemingly explode. Early on in the race, Kurt made contact with Johnson, and Johnson, staying true to the rivalry, paid it back later in the race.
But in the years that followed, that intense rivalry faded, and we saw that when Kurt Busch got his nomination for the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2026. Johnson, showing how NASCAR rivalries sometimes turn into friendships off the track, said, “We certainly had strong opposing feelings for one another at different points, but it’s wild, man. You put the helmet on and just kind of become a different person, and he and I have always gotten along really well outside of the car, and certainly in these last five, eight years, I don’t know, our relationship has gone to new levels. With his injury, the role that he’s playing now, I know it’s filling him up in a different way. He’s been very supportive of me. He came to my Hall of Fame induction and the after-party, we’ve seen a fair amount of each other over the last little bit of time and happy to see him go in.”
In fact, Johnson paid a small tribute to the driver who was forced into retirement after that practice session crash in Pocono back in 2022. The NASCAR community knew one of its legends was forced to exit the sport due to injuries, and Johnson acknowledged it. “For me, ultimately, from my seat on the bus, an amazing career. He unfortunately didn’t go out on his terms, but he has stayed engaged, he’s found new purpose, and then this moment and experiencing it and knowing how he’s going to feel in January after he leaves that stage, he didn’t maybe get the finish he dreamed of, but I think he’s going to end up with a finish that would greatly exceed that dream he had as a kid.”
Just as Jimmie Johnson makes a full circle at Charlotte this year, so will Busch at Pocono!
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