HAMPTON, Ga.—Before Legacy Motor Club became a Toyota factory team, the company had never enjoyed a pair of top-10 finishes in one race.
Before Front Row Motorsports joined forces with Team Penske, the organization started from the pole just once in 1,299 races over 19 years.
Oh, what a difference an alliance makes.
In the Daytona 500, Erik Jones and his new LMC teammate John Hunter Nemechek finished eighth and seventh, respectively. Last year, eight different Legacy drivers combined for 75 starts. Jones posted all seven top 10s for the company behind the wheel of the No. 43 Chevrolet.
“It’s good that we had two fast cars,” Jones said. “I thought our car was capable of winning. We had the speed, just didn’t have the execution. With the 42 (Nemechek), it seemed like he was fast as well. I think he was learning and just trying to get better in the draft, get comfortable. But I think he had a lot of speed.
“So, it was good. We both had a good day. Hopefully, we can see a lot more of that through the year.”
On Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Michael McDowell topped the speed chart in time trials for his 467th NASCAR Cup race—the last 217 starts with FRM. The pole came one week after McDowell qualified second and shared the front row for the Great American Race with Penske driver Joey Logano. The positions were reversed for the Ambetter Health 400.
“I think we definitely have gained some very helpful things that have allowed us to increase the performance,” McDowell said. “But I don’t think we’ll see the true results of what that looks like until we get a few more months down the road.”
Both organizations have benefitted through recent partnerships with stronger entities. Front Row Motorsports collaborated with Stewart-Haas Racing three seasons ago and Roush Fenway Keselowski last year. In 2021, McDowell scored his first career win in the Daytona 500—the third for FRM. Last year, came his second Cup victory—and his second Playoff appearance—with his Indianapolis Grand Prix win.
For the last three seasons, FRM has had a Tier 1 engine program but is now a Ford key partner On February 15, FRM officially announced an alliance with Penske that would include engineering, aerodynamics, race setup, strategy and pit crew support. The company had outsourced the No. 38 pit crew to Joe Gibbs Racing before the agreement was signed.
“We’ve had to change a lot of our procedures and a lot of our processes, which has slowed down a lot of things for us at the shop just like anything new,” McDowell said. “It’s just like moving into a new house. It’s like, ‘Yes, it’s nice and it’s clean and it’s awesome and it’s gonna be great, but right now I have 56 boxes sitting in the living room and I don’t know where my underwear are.’
“That’s a little bit of what we’re faced with right now. It’s gonna be good and it’s gonna get better, but such a late start has made it to where we are drinking from a fire hose and trying to maximize what we can, especially these first five weeks.”
Jones is in his third iteration of his current race team. In 2021, he started as a single-car operation behind the wheel of the Richard Petty Motorsports No. 43 Chevy. By December, Maury Gallagher, team owner of GMS, had purchased majority interest in RPM. For 2022, Jones gained a teammate—Ty Dillon—along with his third career win. The Southern 500 victory was Jones’ second at Darlington and the first Cup win for Gallagher.
Less than a year later, Gallagher announced his partnership with seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson and rebranding GMS to Legacy Motor Club during the season finale at Phoenix. Gallagher’s fellow Las Vegan Noah Gragson replaced Dillon for the 2023 season.
With Toyota Racing looking to expand its footprint in the Cup garage, Petty/GMS was the ideal candidate—a young organization with two drivers who had ties to TRD. Last May, Toyota announced LMC would join the fold as a Tier 1 team.
By the time Jones kicked off the season at the LA Coliseum earlier this month, LMC’s workforce had expanded by 20 percent. The company has recruited long-time motorsports executive and former race team owner Cal Wells to be CEO. Former Cup champion Matt Kenseth came aboard as competition advisor.
“It’s just been growing, right? It’s been a lot more that we’ve had to take in house,” Jones said. “We don’t have an alliance anymore with anyone. We’ve become more self-sufficient and are still working on becoming more self-sufficient, which is good for the future and for the long term.
“That’s how you’re going to become a championship team—a winning team—is being on your own. You can’t rely on other people forever to become a top team in the sport, I don’t feel like.”
Jones, 28, was fast-tracked under the Toyota farm system. He won seven truck races and the series title by the time he was 19. Once he joined the Joe Gibbs Racing Xfinity stable, he scored five wins running on a part-time basis and four additional victories in 2016 en route to a Championship 4 berth.
Jones was named 2017 NASCAR Cup Rookie-of-the-Year. Although he won Races in the next two seasons and advanced to the Playoffs, Jones went winless in 2020 and was replaced by Christopher Bell the following year. After three challenging seasons in the No. 43 Chevy, the improvements can’t come quick enough for Jones.
“I hope it happens sooner than later in my career,” Jones said. “I’m at the midpoint—almost—in my career. So we want to get things rolling at some point. But I think we’re doing all the right things to get things going the right way.”
The clock is ticking faster for McDowell, 39. Fortunately, the introduction of the NextGen car two years ago has leveled the field and offered opportunities that weren’t available to the Phoenix native earlier in his career.
“It’s been very rewarding, but at the same time it’s motivating too because I’m not getting any younger,” McDowell said. “I don’t want to say I’m running out of time, because I still have a lot of time…but I have a lot of catching up to do.
“Today, we have fast cars and that’s not a guarantee six months from now and that’s not a guarantee 12 months from now. I know that because I lived the other side for a long time, so it’s making the most of the opportunity that we have right in front of us right now, because right now we’re in the game and have something for them.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
