Jimmie Johnson doesn’t have the desire to compete full-time in racing anymore, but he’s still not ready to give competition up completely.
Johnson, 48, will run nine NASCAR Cup Series races this season for Legacy Motor Club, the team he co-owns. But the organization is also entering Extreme E and Johnson, a former off-road racer, is splitting driving duties with Gray Leadbetter.
The NASCAR Hall of Famer retired from full-time stock cars in 2020 and then spent 2021 and 2022 in the NTT IndyCar Series while running select sports car events.
“There are aspects of it – the grind of it – certainly wears on me, and I know that is why I didn’t extend to run IndyCar and sports car last year,” Johnson said ahead of this weekend’s Daytona 500. “I had an opportunity to do so, but the commitment it takes to run a full-time season in any championship, I just knew I didn’t have that amount in me to run 17 IndyCar races and a handful of sports car races. But the desire to drive and race and compete and to have the nerves in my stomach or butterflies, the focus that racing requires, I truly long for it.”
Johnson wanted to put together a nine or 10 race schedule for this season and landed at nine given the resources available and sponsorship. A two-time Daytona 500 champion, Johnson begins his campaign looking to earn a spot in the field. It is the third time in his career that he has had to qualify for the race because he didn’t have a guaranteed starting spot (2002; 2023; 2024).