Legacy Motor Club is rebuilding twice as hard to ensure better performances than what we saw from them in the 2024 NASCAR season. 7x NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson & his business partner Maury Gallagher are pulling out all the stops to give their race team the slightest advantage next year.

After a flurry of signings to ramp up their ‘competition’ department, Legacy announced on November 15th that Chad Johnston, a near-two-decade-long motorsport veteran, would join their ranks from the shuttering Stewart-Haas Racing. Johnston, who was most recently the crew chief for Ryan Preece’s #41 team, has worked alongside names like Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson, and Matt Kenseth. Now, he’s booked to lead Legacy’s ‘Race Engineering’ department. But not everyone’s on board with this hire. Some in the NASCAR community are raising eyebrows, with a few even calling Johnston “the worst possible option” the team could have brought over from SHR.

LMC’s new ‘manager of race engineering’ faces a mountain of doubt

Born about 90 miles west of the Brickyard in Indiana, Chad Johnston will work under fellow new hires Brian Campe (Technical Director) and Jacob Canter (Director of Competitions). The trio will be part of Legacy’s new-look competition department. Earlier, Johnston had worked for teams like Chip Ganassi Racing, Gillett Evernham Motorsports, JTG-Daugherty Racing, and Michael Waltrip Racing, He caught his big break in NASCAR, fresh out of Indiana State University as an engineer at the now-defunct Truck Series team, Morgan-Dollar Motorsports.

With a resume like that, it might be hard to doubt Johnston’s engineering credentials. After all, the guy was an active contributor in helping develop Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor, when he was only a senior in college. However, in his NASCAR career, the guy has also switched roles to be a crew chief for nearly 13 years. And it looks like that’s where the grandstands have a bone to pick with the 44-year-old Hoosier. You see, Johnston has only won 7 races in the NASCAR Cup Series, accompanied by a single win in the Truck Series. But he’s raced over 400 times in both those series of NASCAR competitions. That’s an indirect 50:1 win ratio for Johnston, which does not look too good in the bigger picture.

Add to that Legacy Motor Club’s two top-five finishes and 13 top-10s over their last 156 starts, and it’s clear there’s something amiss about the broader calculations. And if that wasn’t all, Legacy is the only Toyota team in the Cup Series that hasn’t won a race in the last two seasons. Even a NASCAR legend like Jimmie Johnson couldn’t finish better than 28th in any of his part-time starts behind the wheel of his own team’s sub-par equipment. It’s tough to pinpoint the exact issue. However, well-connected insiders point to LMC’s refusal to collaborate with other TRD-affiliated teams as a key factor holding back their progress.

But above all, signings like Johnston’s have fallen under major scrutiny, all thanks to Legacy’s tricky recent circumstances. To gain a better perspective, the guy’s crew chief ventures with Ryan Preece over the last two years have only fruited two top-five and seven top-10 finishes. Is that truly the type of guidance drivers like Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek require at Legacy? In 2025, they need to show up with wins, and hopefully, Johnston’s engineering prowess can help them with that, if not his pit stall advice.

But the fans aren’t too happy with Chad Johnston’s new role at Legacy, and their frustrations are roaring loud on the NASCAR social media.

Fans fume over Jimmie Johnson & crew’s ‘poor’ hire

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Most fans weren’t playing nice about the entire ordeal. The disillusionment that has come forth, courtesy of LMC’s average performances, appears to be only increasing inside the NASCAR community. Hence, one fan wrote, “LMAO they hired the worst possible option 💀” when the news of Johnston’s appointment made the rounds of the NASCAR subreddit.

Another diehard reacted, “Isn’t Matt part of the decision-making? He fired this tool when he ran the 42 part time. Wth!” This fan was referring to 2003 Winston Cup champ Matt Kenseth’s role as competition advisor at Legacy. He and Johnston had teamed up at Chip Ganassi Racing’s #42 operations for a few outings after Kyle Larson got suspended in 2020 for using a racial slur during an iRacing event. But after a string of disappointing performances for the #42 team, Phil Surgen replaced Johnston as Kenseth’s crew chief under contentious conditions.

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Others questioned, “Can y’all hire someone who’s actually good at their job for once or nah,” while another member of the NASCAR community mused, “Preece, Larson, and Tony fans crying for LMC fans right now.” But amidst all the opinions, one question stood out above the rest: “Why do so many organizations across so many different sports recycle people who clearly are not that good instead of trying new talent?” 

That is a valid question, no doubt. However, one fan left us all with a big smile, thanks to their comedic reply, which read, “At this point, they should throw a few bucks at me I mean I can’t make it much worse.” It would be tough to argue with that notion if Legacy Motor Club shows up with more of what they served us in the 2024 season. So, here’s to hoping Chad Johnston’s arrival helps take ol’ JJ’s race team to the next level.