At the start of 2025, Jimmie Johnson scaled up his team ownership role. When he joined Petty GMS Racing at the end of 2022, the plan was to move slowly. But Johnson stepped up when the renamed Legacy Motor Club’s co-owner, Maury Gallagher, stepped back. The results have been slow, with 2024 spelling a disastrous season. However, things are looking up in 2025, as Johnson looks back on his past experience with gratitude.

In the recently unfolded Coca-Cola 600 race, Jimmie Johnson crashed out. But both his drivers, Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek, ran in the top five and top ten for many laps. This marked a result of hard work and dedication – ideals which Johnson attributed to his past Cup Series team, Hendrick Motorsports.

Jimmie Johnson feels humble and grateful

The 7-time Cup Series champion’s journey under Rick Hendrick started in the late 1990s. Jimmie Johnson began in Late Models, the ASA Series, and then moved into the Xfinity Series. His lone Xfinity win came at Chicago in 2001, a year when HMS hotshot Jeff Gordon noticed Johnson’s talents. As it turned out, Gordon’s hunch was right, as his fellow Californian spewed gold soon after his Cup series debut. Just on his 10th start with crew chief Chad Knaus, Johnson won in his home state of California. What followed was a legendary career like no other, clinching 7 titles, 5 of which came consecutively between 2006 and 2010. Johnson’s 83 Cup Series race wins included crown jewels like Daytona 500s, Brickyard 400s, and Coca-Cola 600s.

But besides the material prizes, Jimmie Johnson gleaned a career’s worth of lessons. Hendrick Motorsports was the perfect platform for him to reach the pinnacles of glory. In a recent interview with NASCAR, Johnson highlighted the gems who helped him: “I think working in the Hendrick system really showed me…I’ll move back a step. We all have our own styles and personalities. And going to work for Hendrick Motorsports, that is who I aspired to be. That was kind of my foundation and DNA as an individual. So to go into that system and work for Mr. Hendrick, to work alongside yourself, Jeff Gordon…Gosh, I think back to Randy Dorton. We can go on and on through the great names, and of course, Chad Knaus. It was just my people.” 

Rick Hendrick has time and again emphasized the people in his organization. Be it granting leaves when possible or highlighting the employees behind the scenes, HMS fosters a people-first ideology. That has stuck with Jimmie Johnson, as he continued, “I’ve been able to thrive in a system and live in a system that’s a lot like family. Although that element is important, and it really teaches you just how important people are in that team environment…The work ethic and dedication…such an integral part of Hendrick Motorsports…You’re the first one in, the first one out, sun up and sun down – that is just what happens there. Being in that system, being around it has really shown me the way.”

Clearly, the impact of working under the HMS umbrella is fresh for Jimmie Johnson, now a team owner himself. It also goes the other way around, as his co-workers and rivals have revealed.

Johnson also left a resounding impact

It is always a combination of forces that makes something legendary. Besides his jaw-dropping race achievements, Jimmie Johnson’s contribution extends to his connection with people. A 10-year-old fan, Beau Smith, was present at a 2015 conference in Dover, despite his physical handicap. He hugged Jimmie Johnson several times from his wheelchair, and the champion made it a point to keep contacting him. Then Johnson’s public relations representative at Hendrick Motorsports, Amy Walsh Stock, has revealed how genuine the driver is. Even Tony Stewart, one of Johnson’s fiercest rivals in the late 2010s, strongly said that Johnson is frequently overlooked. He said in 2020, “There is no doubt in my mind, he is the most underrated champion we’ve ever seen.”

Jimmie Johnson’s HMS co-workers thought the same. “He’s the nicest guy, the best race car driver ever to sit a NASCAR race car,” Chad Knaus said. Hendrick Motorsports president and general manager Jeff Andrews also hailed the star’s kind demeanor. “Jimmie is just a great person and a great teammate. I appreciate all that he did for this company. Outside of the wins, the numbers, and the records that could stand possibly forever, he’s one of the greatest, if not the greatest, to get behind the wheel of a stock car. The way he treated teammates and those around him, it is so easy to respect the class he carries himself with.”

Clearly, the sentiment flows both ways. Currently, Jimmie Johnson is using all that HMS has gifted him to mold his own race team, and the sky is the limit for him.