By nearly each metric, Jimmie Johnson is one in every of NASCAR’s best drivers — his seven Cup Sequence championships tie him with Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. for essentially the most ever.
However after he retired from stock-car racing in 2020, Johnson appeared to get as far-off from NASCAR as potential: He represented the USA on the Race of Champions final 12 months in Sweden; he competed in classic automobile races on the 2022 Goodwood Revival in England; he dabbled in endurance racing; and final season, he participated full time within the open-wheel collection IndyCar, which included his first begin on the Indianapolis 500.
“Rising up, my heroes took their helmets anyplace world wide and drove each car,” Johnson mentioned in a latest cellphone interview. “I discovered myself in a really lucky and distinctive state of affairs to do a few of that during the last two years.”
The one factor that eluded him was success: Johnson, 47, a novice in open-wheel racing, usually ran close to the again of the pack in IndyCar and was thought-about one of many weaker hyperlinks on his endurance groups.
However now, after broadening his racing horizons, he’s set to return to NASCAR at Sunday’s Daytona 500, this time as a part-time racer and a partial proprietor of Legacy Motor Membership, the crew previously often known as Petty GMS Motorsports. He joins an possession group that features Petty — the 85-year-old NASCAR legend — and the airline entrepreneur Maury Gallagher.
Motorsports are experiencing an upswing in recognition in the USA, Johnson mentioned, highlighted by the nation’s elevated curiosity in Formulation 1. He believes NASCAR is poised for comparable success and felt that this 12 months was the precise time to return.
“The water is rising within the harbor, and it’s lifting all ships,” Johnson mentioned. “In NASCAR, we’re seeing youthful homeowners enter the game now with alternative ways of doing enterprise, totally different concepts and tradition. Everybody is basically rethinking issues, rising and creating.”
For years, NASCAR has hoped to recapture the recognition it as soon as loved within the late Nineties and early 2000s, when drivers like Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon had been family names. Johnson got here on the scene round then, too, and broke via to dominate the game, profitable 5 straight Cup Sequence titles from 2006-10. However curiosity in NASCAR waned within the years that adopted, with many pundits blaming the decline on adjustments to the racing format, the retirements of star drivers and the introduction of an unpopular, boxy standardized chassis in 2007.
The dip in recognition was notably evident in TV scores. In response to Nielsen, the 2006 Daytona 500 — which Johnson received — earned 19.4 million viewers, the very best within the occasion’s historical past. Final 12 months’s version garnered lower than half of that with 8.9 million viewers, although that represented an enchancment over the prior two years.
In recent times, the group has proven a willingness to experiment to succeed in new audiences by internet hosting extra races at highway programs in a departure from its conventional oval tracks, staging extra occasions on dust tracks and operating exhibitions contained in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In July, NASCAR will host a avenue race in Chicago, a primary of its type for the collection.
“There have been lots of adjustments made inside the sport, a push so as to add new markets, and there’s simply lots of power and pleasure round NASCAR,” Johnson mentioned. “I actually imagine in the place the game goes.”
Even the idea of crew possession has begun to vary. Groups like 23XI Racing, co-owned by the retired N.B.A. star Michael Jordan, and Trackhouse Racing, co-owned by the Grammy Award-winning rapper Pitbull — which each debuted in 2021 — have proven the worth of making a powerful model identification for themselves, in accordance with Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s chief working officer. Each groups supply intensive merchandise and have carved out distinct presences on social media.
“One factor that has been missing is that model identify round a crew, so far as it being nearly like its personal leisure firm,” O’Donnell mentioned. “We noticed with Trackhouse, for instance, how they approached {the marketplace} — I feel it opened lots of eyes. You possibly can turn into part of NASCAR but additionally department out and be your individual model.”
Petty mentioned that this “new-school” pondering was what Johnson dropped at the desk and was the driving pressure behind his crew’s rebrand.
“That is the beginning of what we’re attempting to perform in the long term, trying 5 and 10 years down the road,” Petty mentioned. “We need to make it so folks will pull for the crew regardless of who’s driving or sponsoring the automobiles, or regardless of the circumstances could also be. It’s type of like a soccer crew — you continue to pull for the crew regardless of who the quarterback is.”
Johnson’s return to NASCAR additionally coincides with the game’s trying to increase its worldwide profile. In June, NASCAR will enter a modified model of its next-gen inventory automobile into 24 Hours of Le Mans, the well-known French endurance race. Johnson might be one of many automobile’s drivers, becoming a member of a crew consisting of Mike Rockenfeller, a previous Le Mans winner, and Jenson Button, the 2009 Formulation 1 world champion.
“Le Mans is basically the very last thing on my bucket record,” Johnson mentioned. “As I’ve traveled the world and attended different occasions, I’ve at all times been impressed and shocked how a lot followers and different opponents find out about NASCAR. So, I’m comfortable that we’re attempting to faucet into that and make our attraction extra worldwide.”
Worldwide growth is a serious purpose of NASCAR’s within the subsequent few years, O’Donnell mentioned. The group has 4 racing collection in worldwide markets — Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Europe — and O’Donnell mentioned the aims had been to develop these collection, probably carry a Cup Sequence occasion to these markets and entice worldwide drivers to compete within the Cup Sequence within the U.S.
These efforts have already yielded outcomes: Final 12 months, Daniel Suárez of Trackhouse Racing grew to become the primary Mexican driver to win a race in NASCAR’s high collection. And final 12 months’s Cup Sequence race at Watkins Glen, N.Y., featured drivers from seven totally different international locations — essentially the most within the group’s historical past.
O’Donnell mentioned that Johnson, who now has a wealth of worldwide racing expertise, might be a key participant as NASCAR appears to be like to additional broaden overseas.
“He’s a terrific ambassador for the game and somebody we’ll lean on to offer suggestions on easy methods to develop in the precise approach,” O’Donnell mentioned.
As for this weekend’s Daytona 500, will probably be the primary time Johnson has ever competed in NASCAR’s next-gen automobile, which debuted final 12 months and encompasses a new transmission and totally different drafting dynamics than the earlier inventory automobiles. Since Johnson shouldn’t be a full-time Cup Sequence driver this season and might be competing in choose races, he needed to earn his spot in Sunday’s subject via qualifying earlier this week.
And though Johnson has received the Daytona 500 twice, his fellow NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin, a veteran of the game and a founding father of the 23XI crew, expressed skepticism that his former rival may stay aggressive on the race and all through the season.
“I hate tainting what I’m going to consider him if he is available in and struggles — which is the almost certainly situation,” Hamlin mentioned on his podcast this month.
However different drivers had been much less involved about Johnson’s means. Scott Dixon, a six-time IndyCar collection champion, labored as Johnson’s teammate the previous two seasons on the Chip Ganassi Racing crew in IndyCar and mentioned that Johnson’s championship pedigree was on full show.
“Jimmie’s not scared, man — inside or exterior of the automobile,” Dixon mentioned. “His consideration to element and work ethic was excellent, and all of us noticed the good points internally greater than folks did within the grandstands. Returning to NASCAR might be like muscle reminiscence, and I’ve little question that if he has a profitable automobile, he may win the race.”
Johnson himself is much less involved about outcomes. The Daytona 500 would be the first of a handful of races he’ll compete on this season, and his main purpose is to achieve expertise contained in the automobile to supply suggestions to his crew’s engineers and full-time drivers. But when issues break proper, something may occur.
“It’ll be a studying curve to stand up to hurry, however I’ll get there,” he mentioned. “My goal is to outlive, acquire expertise — and hopefully be there on the finish.”