Jimmie Johnson‘s NASCAR retirement and IndyCar experiment lasted all of two seasons. The seven-time NASCAR champion is returning in 2023 to the sequence that made him a worldwide motorsports star because the part-owner of Petty GMS. He’ll additionally enter about 5 Cup races.
Johnson instructed The Related Press that his first race would be the season-opening Daytona 500, the place he is a two-time winner. “I’ve had a watchful eye on the possession half and what’s occurring with NASCAR, and the chance that I’ve right here, the enterprise construction and the mannequin with NASCAR charters is simply so completely different from than anything in motorsports,” Johnson instructed . “I wish to be a part of it. We actually watched Michael Jordan be a part of, what the Trackhouse Racing of us have executed, and there is all these rumors of people that wish to get into the game. “I am honored and grateful that I’ll be a part of it.”
His automotive quantity and sponsors – and possibly even the present Petty GMS title – are all a piece in progress for Johnson, who turned 47 in September. On his bucket listing are the Coca-Cola 600, a race he is received 4 occasions, and he’d love if NASCAR made him eligible for the 2023 All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina.
Johnson additionally mentioned he nonetheless desires to do “The Double” of the Indianapolis 500 and Coke 600 on the identical day, however he is on maintain as Chip Ganassi shapes the group Johnson left after two seasons. However, even when an Indy 500 experience materializes, the All-Star race would battle with Indy 500 qualifying. And, he is now half proprietor of a Chevrolet group, so that may theoretically stop him from racing with Ganassi, a Honda group.
Johnson made his Indy 500 debut in Could and though he proved respectable on the IndyCar ovals – he skipped them his first season – the street and road programs have been a battle and he admitted to being burned out on the finish of the total season. He mentioned he’d step again from full-time racing and was eyeing a bucket listing of about 10 occasions, probably together with the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a NASCAR consultant.
When he got here to that late-September determination to step away, Johnson insisted he had no thought what he wished to do subsequent. It took about six weeks for Johnson to get again into NASCAR by way of conversations initiated by the administration agency shared by Johnson and Erik Jones, the Petty GMS driver he simply inherited.
Johnson mentioned he had no talks with Hendrick Motorsports about possession alternatives because the GMS deal got here collectively out of the blue. He instructed the AP alerted Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon of his plans. Johnson drove 20 years for Hendrick and received 83 Cup races within the No. 48 Chevrolet.
“This can be a super day for our sport. Jimmie is among the all-time nice champions on the racetrack, and I do know he’ll apply the identical mentality to his position as a group proprietor,” Hendrick mentioned in a press release. “… Seeing Jimmie in a firesuit along with his title on the roof of a Chevrolet on the Daytona 500 goes to be very particular for lots of people. Competing in opposition to him will definitely be a change, and an enormous problem, however we welcome his return to NASCAR and look ahead to the following chapter of a really exceptional profession.”
Johnson’s seven championships ties him with Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt, each Corridor of Famers. He made his announcement with GMS founder Maury Gallagher on Friday at Phoenix Raceway, the place he retired from NASCAR after the 2020 season finale. The Hendrick Motorsports torch was handed that day when Chase Elliott received the Cup title – Johnson completed fifth, better of the non-title contenders – and Johnson started chasing his IndyCar dream. He had not been to a NASCAR race since that 2020 finale.
Now he desires again in and with a much bigger piece of the motion. He will get it with Petty GMS, an upstart two-car group funded by Gallagher, chairman of Allegiant Air, and fronted by Petty. Jones in September gave “The King” his two hundredth win within the famed No. 43 automotive, and earlier than this deal was struck, the group had already determined to dump Ty Dillon for firebrand Noah Gragson subsequent season.
The velocity through which the deal was accomplished was astonishing to each Gallagher and Johnson, and Gallagher instructed the AP that Johnson, like Brad Keselowski at RFK Racing, financially bought his stake within the group and will not be a figurehead. “Jimmie is only a super man and in my older age, I worth relationships as a lot as something,” Gallagher instructed the AP. “I am extra of a background man. I would like Jimmie and Richard to be the faces of the group, assistance on the economics and the operations is only a massive bonus.”
GMS has in a couple of decade has grown from a Truck Sequence group right into a first-year Cup group that acquired Richard Petty Motorsports and its 85-year-old Corridor of Fame namesake. Despite the fact that Jones has been aggressive and received at Darlington, it did not qualify for the playoffs and Gallagher mentioned GMS has been overshadowed by Justin Marks, who in his second season as proprietor of Trackhouse Racing has driver Ross Chastain in Sunday’s championship race.
