Rick Hendrick doesn’t view Jimmie Johnson as a turncoat—far from it.
After all, Johnson claimed seven NASCAR Cup Series championships—including a record five in a row—while driving the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from 2001 through 2020.
Johnson also contributed 83 victories to Hendrick’s record 313, two of them DAYTONA 500 wins.
When William Byron took the checkered flag in the Great American Race on Sunday night—winning the event for the second straight year—Hendrick had his 10th triumph as an owner in NASCAR’s most prestigious race, breaking a tie with Petty Enterprises for most all-time.
Behind Byron and runner-up Tyler Reddick, Johnson finished third after recovering from a problem-plagued pit stop on his final trip to pit road.
Johnson wasn’t driving a Hendrick car, and he wasn’t driving a Chevrolet. After the two-year detour into the IndyCar Series, Johnson took the plunge into Cup ownership with LEGACY MOTOR CLUB. Last year, the organization switched from Chevrolets to Toyota.
After two years of struggles, Legacy found a beacon of hope in Sunday’s race, with Johnson’s third and John Hunter Nemechek’s fifth-place run.
Hendrick doesn’t begrudge Johnson in his breath of success—quite the opposite. When Johnson was contemplating buying into a NASCAR team, Hendrick was his sounding board.
“I’m super impressed with Jimmie,” Hendrick said Monday morning after the Champion’s Breakfast at the DAYTONA 500 Club. “He came to me and told me what he was working on before he ever went into the deal over there with those guys (Richard Petty and Maury Gallagher).
“But I know Jimmie Johnson well enough that, when he puts his mind to it, he’s going to work his butt off. And he’s done an exceptional job…”
Hendrick thinks Johnson’s efforts at Legacy are poised for long-term success.
“He’s gone about it the right way,” Hendrick said. “He built it a brick at a time. You try to get your base right, and you can grow it. Jimmie’s a leader, and his work ethic is so good. He will be a force in the sport because he will surround himself with good people.
“And he’s articulate. He will be able to bring in good sponsors. I’m real proud of him.”
Johnson wasn’t the only fledging owner who impressed Hendrick during Speedweeks at Daytona. To say that Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fully invested in JR Motorsports’ first attempt at a Cup Series race is a massive understatement.
In Thursday night’s Duel at Daytona, Justin Allgaier raced his way into the DAYTONA 500 field in the No. 40 JR Motorsports Chevrolet and rallied to finish ninth in the organization’s debut.
“I was so proud of Dale,” Hendrick said. “He got that car in the race. He wasn’t that happy when he won the 500, and to get that car in the race, I’ve never seen anything to beat it. But he and Kelley (Earnhardt-Miller) worked their butts off.
“If you look at the future of the sport, you look at Jimmie, you look at Jeff (Dickerson of Spire Motorsports), you look at Dale, you look at Brad (Keselowski of RFK Racing), and you look at those kinds of guys who are sticking their necks out to build something—that’s good for the sport.”
JR Motorsports doesn’t have any current races scheduled in the Cup Series, but Hendrick believes the success at Daytona may prove to be a catalyst for the organization.
“I think this is going to fuel them to want to do it,” Hendrick said. “…I’ve never seen him this excited. I think this will lead to something.”
A matter of inches
William Byron’s winning No. 24 Chevrolet returned to Victory Lane on Monday morning for ceremonies honoring the 2025 champion.
With one notable exception, the car was pristine in appearance, a testament to Byron’s ability to keep his Camaro clean throughout the race.
The exception was a horizontal scrape directly behind the rear wheel well. The car acquired that scar not while evading the crashing cars of Cole Custer and Denny Hamlin on the decisive final lap, but in the wreck that saw Chistopher Bell’s spinning car launch the Ford of Ryan Preece into the air.
It was Bell’s Toyota that inflicted the slight damage to Byron’s Chevrolet.
“Looking at the car, where Christopher Bell… where I clipped his car, if that hits me six inches in front of the tire, I’m probably in that crash, hooked into the wall,” Byron said on Monday morning.
Instead, Byron escaped the close call and eventually found himself in Victory Lane as the fifth driver to win back-to-back DAYTONA 500s.
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
