Legacy Motor Club’s Toyota Alliance Could Prove Detrimental for Hendrick Motorsports. Here’s How

For the 2024 NASCAR Cup season, Legacy Motor Club has new partners. After rising from the ashes of Richard Petty Motorsports, the organization had a tall task ahead of them. However, to see that their prospects are met, they have made several changes in recent years. In 2022, the team recruited none other than Jimmie Johnson as a part owner and driver. Moreover, since 2018, the organization has been powered by Chevrolet, but that has all changed and, from 2024 onwards, will be allied with Toyota.

Throughout its Chevrolet tenure, LMC has arguably been disillusioned with its partnership with the American automobile giants. Years of poor results and just a single win since 2014 have finally been the straw that broke the camel’s back. As a result, Legacy Motor announced it was switching to Toyota as a manufacturing supplier from the 2024 season onwards.

Why will this hurt Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports?

Recently, Legacy Motor Club CEO Cal Wells made a startling accusation. As per Autoweek, he said in a recent interview, “One of the things that Jimmie and Maury (Gallagher) realized very early is that they needed to be what is termed in NASCAR vernacular as Tier 1—a team being supported as a Tier 1 member of Chevrolet, Ford, or Toyota. And those are very sought-after and coveted positions within NASCAR.” With this statement, he suggested that Chevrolet did not view them as a high-priority team.

Wells cited the examples of Team Penske, Roush Fenway Keselowski, and Stewart Haas Racing. All three teams were considered Tier 1 or top priority. Conversely, Chevy prioritizes Hendrick Motorsports, Trackhouse Racing, and Richard Childress Racing, while other Chevy-run teams fall lower down the pecking order.

For Hendrick Motorsports, in particular, it could be a big loss since Jimmie Johnson was their star driver. Additionally, a team as old as Legacy Motor Club, given its previous incarnations, could have been a valuable asset in the development department for all the Chevy teams. Chevrolet also lost another team in the form of Live Fast Motorsports, as Spire Motorsports bought their charter to field a third car. In essence, Chevrolet has gone down from eight teams under its umbrella, to six teams, and from 16 cars to 14 cars.

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Will this help Toyota and LMC in the long run?

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Toyota only has two teams on their roster, namely Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing. Legacy Motor Club brings that up to three teams, adding two more cars. Now, the more teams are covered under one blanket, the more chances of the priority scale shifting. And teams like Chevrolet are “oversubscribed” because of the multitude of Tier 1 teams. Considering this, switching to Toyota made sense since the resources are split between the two teams. It could also help Toyota with extra cars on the racetrack, especially on superspeedways, where cars of similar manufacturers like to partner up and form a slip-stream train.

In 2023, Toyota had six-car drafts, compared to at least a 16-car Chevrolet train and a 14-car Ford train. Now, the number has shifted. It might not seem like much on paper, but Toyota might see this as an absolute win because they have more firepower.

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