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Did anyone ever think they\u2019d see Jimmie Johnson racing a Toyota in NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series? Likely not, as the seven-time Cup Series champion has been a Chevrolet guy since he joined Hendrick Motorsports and began carving up the series to suit his own pleasure.<\/p>\n
But then, when Johnson departed NASCAR and joined the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, he drove a Honda-powered Dallara for Chip Ganassi Racing. While many might not think that went too well, for the two years that Johnson was part of the Ganassi clan, he improved his on-track performance greatly. He had to relearn how to race because, well, Cup Series sedans are the antithesis of INDYCAR\u2019s single-seater rocket ships.<\/p>\n
Johnson did two years\u2019 time in the open-wheel ranks and his final go was in 2022 at the series\u2019 finale in Monterey, California. He then elected to return to Cup Series competition – driving on a part-time basis and co-owning the No. 42, currently driven by Noah Gragson and Erik Jones\u2019 No. 43 Chevrolets, branded as LEGACY MOTOR CLUB. He co-owns the operation with businessman Maury Gallagher.<\/p>\n Next year will see their two cars wearing Toyota Camry body lines and using Toyota\u2019s TRD engines, which will bring the manufacturer an eight-car brigade in 2024, when LEGACY MOTOR CLUB joins the four Joe Gibbs Racing Camrys and the duo from 23XI Racing.<\/p>\n With his 83 NASCAR Cup Series victories and seven series titles that include five in a row, Johnson is the premier racer of his generation. He\u2019s won the Daytona 500 twice and has four All-Star race wins. Gallagher is no slouch. His GMS Racing team has two NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (NCTS) titles (2016 and 2020), together with a total of 65 race wins across six national racing circuits. Gallagher and Johnson teamed up to secure the future of Petty GMS teams at the close of the 2022 season and have been guiding the renamed LEGACY M.C. this year. Of course, adding to the legacy of this organization is team ambassador Richard Petty, who was the first to earn seven championships and secure 200 race wins.<\/p>\n \u201cMaury and I are very excited about the partnership with Toyota and TRD beginning in 2024,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe admire and respect the level at which Toyota conducts their business in this sport, and look forward to forging a new legacy for the future. I will always be appreciative to Chevrolet and everything we have accomplished together. I\u2019m so thankful they took a chance on a kid from California so long ago and proud that the history books will forever memorialize our record-breaking success we shared.\u201d<\/p>\n This is Toyota\u2019s 20th season in national NASCAR competition and the manufacturer has, across NASCAR\u2019s three top divisions, secured almost 600 race wins. With such a short tenure, as compared to both Chevrolet and Ford, Toyota currently has four Camry drivers in NASCAR\u2019s Top 10, while racer Christopher Bell leads the Cup Series in top-five and top-10 results. Some of the outstanding racers who have brought success to Toyota include both Kyle and Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth and the Cup Series\u2019 most recent winner, Martin Truex Jr.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are humbled and delighted to welcome LEGACY MOTOR CLUB into the Toyota and TRD NASCAR family,\u201d said David Wilson, who serves as Toyota Racing Development\u2019s (TRD\u2019s) president. \u201cJimmie Johnson and Maury Gallagher have impressed us with their long-term vision and commitment to building a championship-caliber organization. More importantly,\u201d Wilson stressed, \u201ctheir character and values are aligned with ours and our current Cup Series partners, Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing. Of course, we also look forward to being reunited with our old friends, Erik Jones and Noah Gragson.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones\u2019 distinction in Team Toyota\u2019s NASCAR history has seen him, during his Toyota tenure, become the first driver in NASCAR history to earn Rookie of the Year in all three national series. Jones\u2019 Toyota debut came in the NCTS in 2013; he won later that year in his fifth career start at Phoenix Raceway. He later earned the NCTS championship in 2015, the same season he earned his first NXS win at Texas Motor Speedway. Jones moved to the NASCAR Cup Series with Joe Gibbs Racing, earning two Toyota wins at Daytona in 2018 and Darlington a year later.<\/p>\n For Toyota Motor North America\u2019s executive vice president Jack Hollis, also the president of Toyota Motor Sales, the addition of LEGACY MOTOR CLUB to the brand\u2019s NASCAR family is a great accomplishment. \u201cWhile Toyota\u2019s tenure in NASCAR has yielded on-track success, our proudest accomplishments are those relationships that have been built of the racetrack. Jimmie Johnson and Maury Gallagher, along with the great club that LEGACY M.C. is assembling, will be a great addition to our existing Cup Series team partners,\u201d Hollis said.<\/p>\n The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series marks the most Toyota-supported entries to compete in the NCS since 2011. Toyota produces Camry TRD bodies and engines for its eight full-time entries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did anyone ever think they\u2019d see Jimmie Johnson racing a Toyota in NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series?<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":90800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[772,3470,5029],"tags":[2951,3186,9688,8755,4437,4492,786],"class_list":["post-90798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-circle-track-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-erik-jones","tag-jimmie-johnson","tag-legacy-motor-club","tag-maury-gallagher","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-noah-gragson","tag-richard-petty"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Noah-Gragson-Coliseum-min-e1683071149779.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-nCu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90798"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90816,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90798\/revisions\/90816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Noah-Gragson-Coliseum-min.jpg\")
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