If you haven’t been paying attention to Legacy Motor Club, you need to be. When I spoke with Joey Cohen, Vice President of Racing Operations for the team on January 11th, there was an aura of confidence that surrounded every answer he gave, and rightfully so, as the team has made more noise in the offseason than many pundits thought they would.
One of the biggest moves the team made was switching manufacturers from Chevrolet, whom the team had been with since 2018 when they were still Richard Petty Motorsports, to Toyota. Cohen said a lot goes into a Cup Series team changing manufacturers, especially when they have to maintain appearances until the final laps of the season.
“The fortunate thing was, we got to go out to the Phoenix test in December when they were testing the short track aero package. That track time is irreplaceable. It’s stuff that you just can’t replicate. To have that track time in the offseason during the transition, to go from running a Chevrolet at Phoenix when the checkered flag falls in November to 30 days later running a Toyota at the same track is a massive effort by our group to build the car, but also by our engineering group. It’s a massive effort on their part to unload another vehicle and go make laps at a competitive pace. So it takes a group effort. It takes a whole team effort and is supported by, obviously, a great OEM partner in Toyota, great people at Legacy Motor Club, great mechanics, great engineers. That’s what gets it done in the offseason.”
Cohen said the engineering group at LMC is bearing the brunt of the manufacturer change.
“You see the (physical) vehicle change, and with the Next Gen platform, that’s pretty easy to accomplish. Our chassis are still the same. Most of the components in the car are the same. It’s really just the body, driveline, and engine package changing. We have really great partners in Toyota going over to this TRD engine platform. Those guys are doing a great job of handling that aspect of it. We hang all of our own bodies ourselves, so we have the capability to take that on ourselves. But it’s really a massive effort by the engineering group on the other side of things. Everything they have from tools to preparation, to how they do their job changes completely. Different simulation tools, different simulator, different programs for the engineering department to set up vehicles, work on pre-event stuff with vehicle optimizations and setups. All our information is based off Chevrolet, so it’s really just transferring that information to a Toyota environment. That’s going to the Toyota wind tunnel in Salisbury (North Carolina). So I’d say the busiest group this offseason has been our engineers, who have been trying to correlate where we’ve been with the Next Gen car the last 2 years, and translating that into the Toyota Platform.
Whether it be on track performance or garnering more sponsorship for the team, Cohen agreed wholeheartedly when I told him it seemed to be an exciting time in the race shop.
“You can tell there’s energy in the shop right now. Most of the group has been here since Day 1, and to see where it was two years ago, you almost have to pinch yourself, right? It’s one thing to be in the presence of Richard Petty and Jimmie Johnson. But it’s a fast-paced environment and a lot of good things are happening, things you can get excited about. Today, we announced a partnership with Family Dollar and Dollar Tree on a 38-race schedule. It just seems like every time we turn around, there’s been an announcement. There’s some energy coming out of Legacy Motor Club. That’s really fun to be a part of. There’s no replacement for continuing to grow and continuing to move forward. Along the way, there’s been success and there’s been growing pains, but overall, when you look at the span of 2 years and now going into the third one, I think it’s really exciting when you look at what’s on our plate this season, and a lot to be excited about when you think about Toyota support coming in in our third year as an organization. I think if you look around at our peers, they kind of hit their stride going into their third year. And that’s just a product of getting your feet under you, getting your systems in place and getting your staff and team built out. That’s a process. It takes time. A lot of these things are coming together at the right time with Toyota coming on board and our team coming into its own going into year three. So we have a certain level of energy in the shop right now going into 2024.”
“Expectations are really high. That’s a really good place to be in for a young team like ours.”
As I asked Cohen about the team’s driver lineup in 2024, his face lit up, especially when I mentioned 7-time champion Jimmie Johnson.
“We’re really excited about our driver lineup for 2024. To be where we are as an organization and have two established veterans of the sport, even though they’re both floating around 26, 27 years old, I’m like you, I feel like Erik Jones has been in the Cup Series for 10 years now. We’re really excited for Erik and John Hunter to have the resources behind them. A driver needs a good team and good OEM support behind them. I feel like we have 2 of the best drivers in the garage from an organizational standpoint. It’s exciting when you can give those guys what they need in the garage, the tools they need to grow quickly. And then, having Jimmie back this season for a good handful of races, including some racetracks he had a lot of success at, is huge. The Daytona 500 is always going to be fun, but we’re really excited for some of the other races on his schedule this year. He’s going to Charlotte, Kansas, Dover, places where he’s been historically dominant. It’s going to be a really fun season overall with our three drivers.
“We feel like we’re in a really good spot for the future.”
Legacy Motor Club will start their season off with the rest of the field in Los Angeles on February 4th with Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek, and Jimmie Johnson will join them in the Daytona 500 on February 18th. Both races will air on FOX.
