Last May, Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy Motor Club shook things up by announcing they’d switch from Chevy to Toyota for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. This change was set to beef up Toyota’s presence on the grid, bumping their numbers from six to eight chartered cars, with Legacy Motor Club joining the ranks alongside Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing.

But despite a solid performance in 2023, Eric Jones [the full-time driver of Legacy Motor Club] and his team didn’t make the playoffs, and it seems the switch to Toyota hasn’t been a walk in the park for them this year. The crew chief for Eric Jones recently spilled the beans on how they’re adjusting to the new manufacturer.

Jimmie Johnson’s team’s crew chief admits they’re still ironing out the kinks

The 2024 season kicked off pretty well for Legacy Motor Sport, especially at Daytona, where Jimmie Johnson’s drivers showed some spark. Eric Jones in the #43 Toyota Camry nailed a P8 finish, while John Hunter Nemechek in the #42 edged him out for P7. The latter kept up the momentum with a P6 finish at Bristol, but Jones’s best post-Daytona was a twelfth at Martinsville. Right now, Nemechek is sitting 19th in the driver standings, just a notch above Jones at 20th.

But according to Eric Jones’s crew chief, they’re not quite hitting their targets yet. Chatting on SiriusXM NASCAR, Dave Elenz shared, “It’s been really interesting for us getting going with Toyota here, I think. You know, everybody had higher expectations than… you know what a results have been so far. So that’s been It’s been challenging for us. There’s a lot of things we have to work through. Just from processes and engineering side of things that- they take time to get through and to understand all the capabilities that Toyota has, and understand how we can utilize those into our process.”

He mentioned, “I feel like we’ve got gained an understanding of where we need to be and are putting together a… couple good finishes, hopefully, that continues here in Texas. But it’s going to take more time for us to get to where we want it to be than I think.”

Right now, it looks like Jimmie Johnson’s team is zeroing in on Texas, taking things one race at a time. And according to the stats, Texas might just be the game-changer for the Legacy M.C. team.

Could Texas be the turning point for Legacy Motor Club?

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Texas is the first intermediate track on the calendar since Kyle Larson snagged a win in Las Vegas back in March. Big names like Larson, who averages 18.6 with one win at Texas, William Byron with a solid 12.1 average, Chase Briscoe clocking in at 10.0, and Denny Hamlin at 13.3, are all ones to watch in the upcoming Texas Cup race. But don’t count out Eric Jones and John Hunter Nemechek just yet.

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Eric Jones has a pretty impressive track record at Texas, averaging an 11.8 finish over 12 starts and consistently staying in the top 10, bagging three top-5s and seven top-10s. Meanwhile, John Hunter Nemechek has shown promise in the Xfinity races at Texas with an average finish of 8.0.

Though his Cup race showings have been less stellar, with three finishes around the P22 mark, if he gets a handle on his Toyota Camry, he might just surprise us and lead the pack just as he used to do in Xfinity races. Do you also think Jimmie Johnson’s crew made a strong comeback in Texas?