Legacy Motor Club places two cars in the top five for first time at Daytona 500
02/17/2025 12:16 AM
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Coming off a tumultuous 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, Legacy Motor Club went to work. New employees were hired, while others were dismissed, with the team owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson aiming to win.
That work showed off immediately. When Erik Jones finished runner-up in the second Daytona Duel qualifying race on Thursday evening, Legacy Motor Club knew it had something to work with for the biggest weekend of the year.
Staying clean is the name of the game at superspeedways, and Jones did just that by tallying stage points in both stages of Sunday‘s Daytona 500. When the pay window opened, he was involved in a late-race wreck. His teammates John Hunter Nemechek and Johnson remained in contention to capture the team‘s first triumph since the 2023 rebrand.
Through a rash of late cautions, Nemechek was in the mix to contend for the victory in the No. 42 Toyota. Johnson, who largely stayed in the back of the pack to avoid trouble, took the white flag in 15th position and needed a miracle to have a shot at winning his third Daytona 500. That opportunity nearly presented itself.
With a multi-car pileup at the front of the field involving race leaders Denny Hamlin and Austin Cindric, William Byron snuck by on the outside to take the lead and claimed his second straight Daytona 500 triumph. Reddick took second after taking the white flag in 13th. Johnson escaped the carnage and followed through to reach third when the checkered flag waved. It equaled Legacy‘s best finish, tying Erik Jones‘ podium result in the fall race at Kansas Speedway in 2023.
"I was getting ping ponged around in the last wreck and somehow kept it straight," Nemechek told Jayski.com. "I came out and the next thing I know, Jimmie was like 50 mph faster than me, blowing my doors off. It‘s cool that he came home third. Who knows how many starts he has left, and for his 699th start, it‘s pretty cool to finish third in the Daytona 500."
The seas parted for Nemechek to finish fifth. The top-five run marks his best career finish in 78 Cup starts.
"Daytona won‘t make your season unless you win it, but coming out of Daytona being wrecked and in a hole isn‘t very good either," Nemechek said. "Having a solid run like we did, coming home fifth, was a really solid day, really solid effort, really solid Speedweeks from the Legacy Motor Club group."
Johnson climbed from his No. 84 Toyota ecstatic, nearly in tears. The third-place finish was his best result since its farewell full-time season in 2020 at Dover Motor Speedway. In 12 prior starts as a driver/owner, Johnson had a best finish of 26th in the 2024 season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
More meaningful to Johnson is posting such a finish for a team that he‘s leading. Accomplishing that hasn‘t sunk in even for a seven-time Cup champion. Johnson has spearheaded major changes for Legacy Motor Club, overseeing the manufacturer swap to Toyota and adding key personnel to the team.
"To be in my own equipment and to do this, I have not thought through this scenario," Johnson said. "This is a grateful experience and emotions I didn‘t expect to have."
Kicking the season off with a pair of top five finishes matches Legacy‘s total from the 2023 and 2024 seasons combined. It‘s an immediate step forward, knowing that the beginning of the 2025 campaign starts off with a trio of non-traditional race tracks.
"It‘s hard in this sport to get too excited about things, especially race one," Johnson added. "There is another plate race next week and then a road course, which is deceiving and then, we get into the meat of the season. We‘re going to enjoy tonight, but we know that we have a long season ahead of us."
After the first week, Johnson — who‘s only other scheduled start in 2025 is at the Coca-Cola 600 in May — and Nemechek are tied for eighth in the championship standings. By scoring nine points through the Duels and a 12th-place finish, Jones is the best of the bunch in seventh.
The collective team is pleased following Speedweeks.
"I‘m excited to see where 2025 goes," Nemechek said emphatically. "We already know that we‘re better than 2024, just how much is the question. Jimmie hired a lot of great people over the offseason, so looking forward to seeing what all the hard work, effort and processes, procedures, personnel — everything that went into it over the offseason — and see what it does for us come 2025."
