As NASCAR’s 2026 season is emphasizing once again gambling on consistency, Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy Motor Club driver Erik Jones is seeing his early struggles through a different lens. Though his initial start was unlucky, he opened up on what role the format also plays in the mindset.

Erik Jones explained his rocky start

In the recent NASCAR Live podcast, Erik Jones opened up about the first few races he participated in at Daytona, Atlanta, COTA, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. Despite having a better position racing-wise, Jones failed to make amends as his races went haywire.

“Looking at the season, it could easily look a lot different than what it is right now. Daytona was good for us and having a chance to win and, it didn’t quite work out,” Jones said. “Atlanta was, kind of a typical Speedway race just got caught up in a wreck play. COTA, we were going to have an OK COTA and had an issue with the throttle getting stuck late in the race. And so Phoenix top ten. In Vegas this week, we just got up and down and ended up where we honestly were kind of where our car was going to run.”

Following this, the Legacy Motor Club driver mentioned how he failed to improve his performance during the races and kept on racking up similar results. With this, he mentioned how all these average results were going to matter less, given the season is long, and he will still have 21 races to go before the Chase begins:

“We were about a 18th to 20th place car a lot of the day, and we finished 20th to stay on the lead lap and had some bright spots but just weren’t able to hit on anything that was spectacular. So we’re still working hard. The nice thing is it’s early in the year. We’ve got plenty of time to keep getting better here. I think we know where we’ve got to improve and what we got to get better for the season going forward. And, we’re going to dive in and hit hard,” he further added.

Notably, Erik Jones had an underwhelming start to the season. At Daytona, he was involved in a spin, leaving him in 21st place. Things did not improve for him at Atlanta, where he was involved in a huge wreck, which ended his race in 24th place.

At COTA, Jones started from 36th place, only to finish in 34th place. Things looked bright for the #43 driver at Phoenix with a top 10, but in Las Vegas, another top 20 finish. After five races, Erik Jones amassed 76 points altogether and is currently in 27th place in the standings.

Jones’ average start position has been 25.8, and his average finish position has been 21.8. With that said, Jones will still have time to be within the Top 16 in the first 26 races to qualify for the Chase. While Jones’ plan for now will be to qualify for the next round, Jimmie Johnson, on the other hand, is thinking big.

Jimmie Johnson wants to expand Legacy Motor Club in coming years

Jimmie Johnson confirmed that his team, Legacy Motor Club, will push for a third charter next year. LMC currently operates two full-time charters for Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek, and one part-time charter for Johnson himself.

However, in 2026, Johnson looks to have one permanent charter. Speaking about it in the recent SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Johnson told Mike Bagley and Pete Piston,

“Without question, we will have a third car on the grid next year.”

Notably, 23XI Racing of Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan, and Front Row Motorsports of Bob Jenkins are the only teams with three charters. They acquired it just after Stewart-Haas Racing went defunct and rebranded it into Haas Factory Team and retained one charter.

The other three Charters were taken by Spire, 23XI, and FRM. And after the lawsuit was resolved, the chances of acquiring new charters became increasingly hard, given that they have become permanent ones. With that said, it will be interesting to see if Johnson manages to grab a charter for his team next year.