We could talk about Denny Hamlin again this week; Hamlin won his third straight Cup race last Sunday at Pocono, but we won’t. Instead, let’s talk about another Toyota team, Legacy Motor Club.
If you know anything at all about Legacy, and most people don’t know very much because it’s one of the many faceless entries that fill out the field at any Cup race, it’s probably because of co-owner Jimmie Johnson.
While Hamlin was earning all the accolades and Hendrick Motorsports was starting to turn heads with its improved performance at Pocono, Legacy quietly had its best day ever.
No, neither one of its drivers, Erik Jones or John Hunter Nemechek, won the race. But Nemechek finished fourth and led a bunch of laps and Jones finished sixth, and when you’re kind of a stepchild Toyota team trying to break out of the pack, stand out from the crowd, that’s big.
Does it mean you’re arrived? No. Does it mean you’ve got a chance to become a mainstream competitor? Maybe. But right now, it’s just one good finish in one race.
Before anyone’s going to look at you differently, you’re got to prove this wasn’t just a one and done, that you’re doing all the things you need to do to become competitive on a consistent basis, that you’ve turned the corner, so to speak.
Legacy has been steadily building toward that goal. The team has a legendary history. It is the latest iteration of Petty Motorsports, which became Petty-GMS Motorsports after a majority interest was purchased by businessman Maury Gallagher.
In 2023, Johnson became the majority owner and Petty was pushed out, marking the first time in NASCAR history that the Petty family wasn’t involved in the sport.
Johnson knows a thing or two about building an elite team. He won seven Cup championships driving for Hendrick Motorsports, and he immediately set to work building a firm foundation at Legacy. His first major move was to switch from Chevy to Toyota in 2024.
Then he brought in Michael Guttilla, who had been chief operating officer at Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota’s top team, as Legacy’s president and Jacob Cantor, a former JGR race engineer heavily involved in research and development, as Legacy’s director of competition.
Toyota gave Legacy some support, but it was limited because Legacy was too small an operation to utilize a lot of the data, engineering and other resources that a team like JGR, with 450 or more employees, could exploit.
And Johnson wanted to build Legacy from within, anyway. With guidance from Guttilla and Cantor, Johnson wanted the team to develop its own research and development and engineering resources with Toyota providing assistance.
So just where is Legacy? Does it now have the building blocks in place to run with the more established teams? Well, the Pocono finish has given Legacy some confidence, maybe going from ‘I think we can do this’ to ‘Hey, we CAN do this.’
The results aren’t there to back that up, though. Jones is Legacy’s best driver and he usually runs mid-pack. Nemechek is even farther down in the field.
But Jones is coming off the sixth at Pocono and a second at Michigan the week before that and Nemechek had kind of a breakout race at Pocono, leading laps and finishing fourth.
“We’ve just got to keep putting them (strong finishes) together, you know?” Jones said after Pocono according to NASCAR’s website.
“This was a race where, honestly, we just ran to our ability. It was nothing more, nothing less. I feel like we were maybe a little better than the 5 (Kyle Larson, who finished fifth) at the end, but sixth place is kind of where we were.
“Proud of the speed, proud of the effort…(we have) cars that are driving good right now, and hopefully, we can keep it going,” Jones commented.
For Nemechek, whose average finish has been in the low 20s most of this year, this was a new experience, one that could pay dividends down the line if he can keep it up.
“It’s way different,” Nemechek, son of former driver and Lakeland native Joe Nemechek, said of running up front on NASCAR’s website. “Like restarts, right? Like how to execute restarts up front compared to in the back.
“How to execute passes when you’re side-by-side, racing for the lead. This was really one of the first instances that I’ve been able to do that in the Cup series,” he continued.
“That was because of the speed and potential we had in our car today (Sunday) and how well we executed,” Nemechek said. “There’s definitely still a lot to learn on my side – we’re not even close to being at the top level, being able to contend for race wins and stuff yet.
“But we’re working on that and being able to run up front and get the experience from running up front, executing restarts and racing for the lead and how to position your car in order to drag guys back and make them tight aero wise, that makes a big difference,” Nemechek said.
If the two Legacy cars can continue to run closer together, it will help both improve their overall performance because shared information will be more valuable than if they finish far apart and things that work for one don’t work for the other.
“It just makes everything in the company simpler,” Jones commented. “I feel like when we have our meeting (last) Monday, John Hunter’s balance is going to be way more similar to what I’m looking for because he’s running up front instead of 15th or 20th.
“That makes everybody’s life easier when you’re trying to build cars and work on the same things,” Jones said. “It builds momentum and confidence in the company. The people that work and build these cars put together better race cars that are cleaner, nicer and that momentum builds if everybody is running well.”
That’s the way the big boys do it, and Legacy wants to be one of the big boys. It has a long way to go to get there, but Pocono might be a start. That’s the upside. The downside is it might be nothing at all. Only time will tell.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at San Diego: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Ty Gibbs. Last year’s winner at San Diego: No race.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Pocono picks: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Kyle Larson. Pocono winner: Hamlin. OGS record after 13 races, 8-5.
OGS competition index top 10 after 13 races (OGS does not include superspeedway races in its standings). 1-Hamlin 448 points, 2-Reddick 337, 3-Christopher Bell 223, 4-Larson 208, 5-Chase Elliott 181, 6-Gibbs 163, 7-Ryan Blaney 150, 8-van Gisbergen 128, 9-Chase Briscoe 102, 10-William Byron 76.
OGS competition index top 10 on road courses (tracks most similar to San Diego): 1-van Gisbergen 116, 2-Reddick 85, 3-Gibbs 61, 4-Michael McDowell 57, 5-Bell 30, 6-Briscoe 24, 7-Ross Chastain 4, 8-Byron 1.