Jimmie Johnson, Legacy Motor Club make major changes to race team

Jimmie Johnson and his Legacy Motor Club leadership are making moves on the competition side of things this week. The NASCAR Cup Series organization is parting ways with with Joey Cohen and bringing Bobby Kennedy on board.

Joey Cohen, who had been serving as competition director, is no longer with the team. Bobby Kennedy, a former crew chief and bright mind on the competition sides of things for years, is going to be the general manager.

Legacy Motor Club is making the changes amid a season that has been more than lackluster. The team was hoping the change from Chevy to Toyota would be fruitful. Now, they are looking for other answers.

Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports shared the news on X.com, formerly known as Twitter.

Some changes at Legacy: Bobby Kennedy, who has been in the sport for decades as crew chief and other competition roles, is now general manager. Competition director Joey Cohen no longer with the team.

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) July 14, 2024

Legacy Motor Club adds Kennedy, who last acted as crew chief for Michael Waltrip in 2015, to the role of general manager. They are hoping that he can provide some kind of guidance for the organization.

This season has not gone how LMC likely had hoped. The results weren’t showing up early in the season and then Erik Jones, their flagship driver, got injured with a fractured back. He has a single top-10 finish this season and sits 28th overall in points.

Jones’ teammate, John Hunter Nemechek has two more top-10 finishes than Jones, but sits 30th in points. Neither driver has really lived up to expectations in 2024, injuries or not.

It will be interesting to see if Jimmie Johnson and Maury Gallagher can get this organization back on track. It is not going to be easy.

Struggles Legacy Motor Club faces

There are a number of reasons why Legacy Motor Club is in a tough spot. They just swapped to a new manufacturer. They are the third, Tier 1 Toyota team in the Cup Series. But they aren’t allied with Joe Gibbs Racing in the same way 23XI Racing is.

Denny Hamlin has been open about how sharing data with JGR is a two-way street. They get 23XI data, but his team basically gets to skip a lot of steps and take in all of the Gibbs data as well. That is a big reason why 23XI Racing, in year four of existence, has had early success.

Legacy Motor Club is building their own data sets. They want to do this by themselves, and that is fine. The growing pains are going to last longer and hurt more, though.

I think that it is a good sign that Legacy doesn’t mind moving people around, or even moving on from others, and adding new personnel. If it starts to become a revolving door, then maybe we need to talk. Right now the team is growing and trying to find the right combination to make it all work.