The Wide World of Dirt

This is not the announcement I expected to drop on this random Tuesday afternoon at the beginning of May, but we are here!

Legacy Motor Club, the team formerly known as Petty GMS Racing will be switching to Toyota beginning in 2024.

LMC currently fields two chartered cars in the NASCAR Cup Series, the #42 driven by rookie Noah Gragson and the famous #43 driven by Erik Jones.

For those that remember, both Gragson and Jones got their start in the Toyota Racing Development program.

Gragson’s NASCAR career began at Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2017 where he took his Tundra to victory lane at Martinsville in the fall and showed some growth as a driver on his way to a 10th-place points finish.

He returned to KBM the following year where he would make a championship race appearance, but he fell short of a title, losing out to Toyota compatriot Brett Moffitt.

Feeling ready to move up, Gragson took an opportunity to drive the #9 Chevy Camaro for JR Motorsports in Xfinity, severing ties with Toyota.

Jones saw much more longevity, success, and disappointment with Toyota.

That Jones Boy was recruited to TRD by Kyle Busch himself. The two dueled for the victory at the 2012 Snowball Derby, one of America’s biggest super late model races.

Jones came out on top that evening, and Busch made sure to sign him while he was independent. He spent a few seasons in Trucks for KBM, winning the 2015 title before moving up to Xfinity for JGR the next year.

His one-season stay in Xfinity showed the kid could wheel, winning four races en route to a championship race appearance.

The Michigan native would then move up to the Cup Series where he raced a second car out of the Furniture Row stable until veteran Matt Kenseth’s contract expired at the end of the 2017 season.

Jones then slid into the #20 seat for three relatively mediocre seasons, winning two races during his tenure.

His first career win came at the summer Daytona race in 2018 where he survived the attrition (and Ricky Stenhouse Jr) before making a statement at Darlington in 2019.

Jones fought tooth and nail against former car owner and then-teammate Kyle Busch in the final stage of the Southern 500, and much like their battle at the Snowball Derby seven years prior, Jones would come out on top.

What plagued Jones compared to his legendary teammates was a lack of Playoff success, getting bounced in the first round in 2018 and 2019.

Though 2020 was an odd year in general for obvious reasons, it was an even odder year for JGR as Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr won just one race all season.

Teammate Denny Hamlin kept the team afloat with seven wins, but Jones fell out of Playoff contention after not winning a race in the regular season.

Not long after that, Jones received word that he would not return to JGR in 2021 as Xfinity Series star Christopher Bell needed somewhere better to go.

That Jones Boy was left in the rain by the former Commanders head coach, heading over to what is now Legacy Motor Club in 2021.

What this means for Legacy MC

Richard Petty’s team has tried a number of different driver, manufacturer, and team combinations over the years in an attempt to recapture their former glory.

Their most consistent success in the last 20 years was in the early 2010s. Racing with Ford, V8 Supercars champion Marcos Ambrose won two races at Watkins Glen in 2011 and 2012 alongside teammate Aric Almirola.

Almirola scored his first career victory at Daytona in the summer of 2014 piloting Petty’s illustrious #43 Ford Fusion and locked the team in the inaugural Playoffs.

Since then, the success has been few and far between despite the efforts of Almirola, Bubba Wallace, and Jones, the man who brought the team their 200th victory at last year’s Southern 500.

The last time I checked, LMC aligns with RCR for technical support, but they’re clearly not getting cars from the top of the Childress pile.

This gives Legacy a chance to receive better support from their manufacturer because they won’t be behind Hendrick, Trackhouse, Childress, and even JTG Daugherty in the pecking order.

Legacy will be the third full-time race team to field Toyota Camrys alongside Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing.

JGR drivers Martin Truex Jr and Denny Hamlin bring a wealth of experience to the table that Chevy simply didn’t have until this season. Even then, Kyle Busch is their only top driver over 30. He might not even be in Chevy’s 7th-best car any given week.

The move for Legacy also signals a massive change for car owner Jimmie Johnson, a lifetime Chevy driver in his NASCAR career.

The 7-time champion would hop behind the wheel of a Toyota for the first time at the LA Clash next season, an event he has already declared he will enter.

Gragson’s career still hasn’t exactly gotten off the ground. That makes it hard to tell how this could positively or negatively affect his trajectory.

That said, he’s a young driver with lots of room to grow, and getting put in (theoretically) better equipment can only help Johnson and Co. determine what Gragson could become.

Personally, I thought they were going to announce a deal to align with Hendrick, especially considering Johnson’s involvement with HMS’ Garage 56 project.

Johnson’s work with the G56 team will be pivotal in boosting Toyota’s program forward as a whole as the Le Mans entry looks to be an advanced version (and potentially the future) of the NextGen model.

The more knowledge and expertise that Johnson is able to provide LMC can only be helpful for Jones’ and Gragson’s long-term viability in the Cup Series.

This is a bright day for Toyota after the darkness that’s loomed over their program since the messy departure of two-time Cup champion Kyle Busch.

They gain two more teams to collaborate with while also taking the heat off of Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin to buy more charters for 23XI.

Chevy will be fine. You saw the teams I listed earlier. Those are nine cars that are relatively competitive at minimum. They also have Kaulig’s two teams. I would not expect this to be considered a loss for them by any means.

This will certainly affect LMC’s performance and support through the rest of 2023.

When RPM declared a shift to Chevy for 2018, their 2017 season with drivers Almirola and Brian Scott was putrid to say the least.

I also wouldn’t expect this to be a fix-all for Legacy with some bumps down the road in 2024 as their team adjusts to the new manufacturer.

Stewart-Haas Racing made the switch from Chevy to Ford in 2017, and it took them a season to really get off the ground, except for Kevin Harvick. He was still competitive and made it to the championship race.

What this means for Toyota

One thing that I’m curious about with this move relates to chartered cars.

This would bring Toyota’s car total to 8/36, but with the recent addition of Johnson to LMC and Jordan’s wide pockets in his big jeans, will they push to add another car?

There are notable free agents this offseason with links to Toyota, notably Front Row’s Todd Gilliland. His career started with KBM in the late 2010s before making the switch to his father David’s former Cup team and Ford for 2020.

Displaying a lot of growth and success in lesser equipment, Gilliland would be a perfect fit to rejoin the Toyota Racing family as his contract with FRM expires.

Making that move even more possible is David Gilliland’s Truck team, Tricon Garage, switching back to Toyota this season as the factory team, replacing KBM.

TRD also houses several prospects with Cup-level talent in the lower series, notably John Hunter Nemechek, Sammy Smith, and Kaz Grala.

If they are able to attain some more charters, Toyota can keep more of their talent in-house and force Chevy and Ford to invest more in the lower series to improve their driver development programs.

Ford’s current roster of developing talent is thinner than wet notebook paper, and Chevy is relying solely on Dale Jr and Kaulig in Xfinity.

Though they lost KFB last offseason, Toyota has taken steps to improve their program in a quantitative sense, something they’ve needed to do for several years.

They’ve invested more support into Sam Hunt Racing in Xfinity and now bring in a really promising Cup team that needed more resources to regularly compete.

All in all, I really love this move for Legacy Motor Club and Toyota.

Well done, Jimmie Jam.