LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Race Preview | Kansas Speedway I

CLUB ENTRY LIST

JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK
POINT STANDINGS: 22nd

COREY HEIM for ERIK JONES
OWNER POINT STANDINGS: 23rd

JIMMIE JOHNSON

CLUB NOTES

EJ Update: As announced earlier today, Erik Jones has been cleared to race by doctors and approved to return by NASCAR, but out of an abundance of caution, the team has opted for Jones to rest for another event. Corey Heim will drive the No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE at Kansas Speedway this weekend. Jones will attend the race at Kansas Speedway to support crew chief Dave Elenz and the No. 43 team and plans to return to the driver’s seat next weekend at Darlington Raceway – a track where he has two NASCAR Cup Series victories.

Last Kansas: Jones and the No. 43 earned the highest finish for LEGACY MOTOR CLUB last season. Jones qualified 19th at Kansas Speedway in the Fall and progressively moved up on the day. By the conclusion of regulation, Jones was on the front row with Dave Elenz, making the bold decision to take two tires before the overtime restart. Jones started the two-lap shootout from the second position, earning the highest finish in the short history of LEGACY M.C. with a third-place result.

AdventHealth 400: Primary partner AdventHealth has the entitlement for this weekend’s race at Kansas Speedway. The AdventHealth 400 will feature trackside activations in hopes of promoting whole-person care and sun safety.

Sun Safety: The Erik Jones Foundation and AdventHealth have teamed up to bring back the Sun Bus for this weekend’s race. The Sun Bus is a mobile skincare unit used to detect skin cancer while educating visitors on sun safety. Last year, during championship weekend, the Sun Bus ran more than 250 screenings, finding 65 suspicious for skin cancer, one of these on Jones. Once the Sun Bus team finds anything suspicious of skin cancer, their team will refer the patient to a medical center in their hometown for treatment options.

Heim holds his own: LEGACY MOTOR CLUB reserve driver Corey Heim made his Cup Series debut in Dover, filling in for Jones. Heim qualified 32nd for the 400-mile contest and quickly learned the nuances of the NextGen car, making 72 green flag passes, ranking second in the race only behind Christopher Bell. Heim finished his first Cup Series Race 25th.

Seat time: Johnson is back in the seat for this weekend’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas marking his first back-to-back appearance on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit since 2020.

Winning pedigree: LEGACY M.C. co-owner Johnson and competition advisor Matt Kenseth know how to win at Kansas Speedway in the NASCAR Cup Series. Johnson has three wins, three pole positions, nine top-five and 19 top-10 finishes, leading 601 laps across his 29 starts. Competition advisor Matt Kenseth has two wins, seven top-fives, 13 top-10s, and three poles leading 774 laps across the 27 starts he made at the 1.5-mile speedway in his NASCAR Cup Series career.

EJ First Start: Kansas Speedway holds a special spot in Erik Jones’s heart. He made his first NASCAR Cup Series start there in 2015 as he filled in for Kyle Busch. At age 18, Jones qualified 12th and led one lap before finishing 40th. Ironically, that day, Jimmie Johnson edged out Kevin Harvick for one of his three wins at Kansas.

Nemechek at Kansas: John Hunter Nemechek has two victories in three attempts at Kansas Speedway in the Xfinity Series. Nemechek has an average start of 11.7 and an average finish of 3.3. Nemechek has never finished outside of the top-10 in the Xfinity Series at Kansas, leading for 218 laps.

Three in a Row: Nemechek had three consecutive poles at Kansas Speedway in the NASCAR Truck Series, starting with the fall race in 2022 and sweeping both races in 2023. Nemechek has only finished outside the top 10 once across his six attempts at the track, earning four top-five and five top-10 finishes. In his most recent Truck Series attempt in 2022, Nemechek led 88 laps from the pole and brought the checkered flag home.

First of Many: Heim took home his first-ever ARCA win at Kansas Speedway in October 2020. After starting 9th, Heim moved up as quickly as possible, finding the front row less than 20 laps into the race. From there, Heim never backed down, leading for 82 of the possible 100 laps, marking his first of nine ARCA wins.

Double Down: Heim will perform double duty this weekend while also running in the No. 11 Toyota Tundra for TRICON Garage. Heim has an average start of 8.0, and an average finish of 11.5 in four Truck Series attempts. Heim has led 71 laps across three of his four races at the 1.5-mile track, earning two top-five and three top-10 results. Heim only owns one finish outside of the top-10 at Kansas Speedway.

Thinking of DC8: All LEGACY M.C. entries will run a decal this weekend in support of Dollar Tree Distribution Center 8 (DC8) in Marietta, Okla. DC8 was impacted by the devastating tornadoes that hit the Oklahoma region last weekend. Although the distribution center was severely damaged, fortunately, none of the 456 associates employed by the distribution center were injured by the disaster.

Family Dollar Gold Star: Partner Dollar Tree will honor store #8396 this weekend as a part of the company’s “Go For G.O.L.D.” (Grand Opening Look Daily) program. The Dollar Tree and Family Dollar primaries will highlight these stores on the deck lid of all three LEGACY M.C. entries throughout the race season. Store #8396 is located in Independence, Mo.

Homecoming: Director of Pit Operations Chris Hall is a native of Springfield, Mo., and Kansas Speedway is his home track. Hall returns to the track that he called “The Motherland,” where he will have friends and family in attendance to cheer on their native son.

CLUB QUOTES

John Hunter Nemechek

Driver of the No. 42 Family Dollar Toyota Camry XSE:

“Kansas is one of my favorite places to go to. Just being able to run multiple lines and run the top as the racetrack rubbers up you can move around quite a bit. As a driver it’s nice to have a lot of options and I have had success there in everything I have driven so far. It’s a track that suited my style pretty well over the years. We learned a lot at Vegas and Texas as far as our intermediate package goes, so I’m looking for improvement from there and a good finish in the No. 42 Family Dollar Toyota Camry.”

Ben Beshore

Crew chief of the No. 42 Family Dollar Toyota Camry XSE:

“Kansas is a little more similar to Vegas without the bumps where you tend to migrate more towards the wall quicker, it’s a little warmer than the first Vegas race. Kansas is a pure mile and a half, somewhat smooth, where you are just ripping every lap to get as much as you can out of the car every lap. John Hunter is very good at managing a car at Kansas so we are looking forward to this weekend.”

Corey Heim

Driver of the No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE:

“My first Cup race was a great learning experience. Dover was certainly a tough task to make my first start, but I’m looking forward to Kansas, where I have a lot more seat time in other series. I’m grateful to LEGACY M.C. for giving me another shot this week while Erik is recovering.”

Dave Elenz

Crew chief of the No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE:

“Kansas has always been a fun track for me. My first Cup Series win in the sport came there in 2003 with John Hunter’s dad, Joe Nemechek. So, that place has always been pretty special for me. It has been a fun track. There are a lot of options for tire strategy, potentially two tires to get to the end of the race. We won that race back in 2003 on two tires, so hopefully, we can do the same thing this week.”

Jimmie Johnson

Driver of the No. 84 AdventHealth Toyota Camry XSE:

“Kansas is a really fun racetrack. Having a car with versatility that can run from the white line to the wall is important. You need the team to be hitting on all cylinders but for a driver, it’s a really fun racetrack, one of the best mile-and-a-halfs on the circuit and I am excited to be able to race it twice this season. Toyota has been really strong there the last few years and its an honor for me to be racing the AdventHealth Toyota in the AdventHealth 400.”

Jason Burdett

Crew chief of the No. 84 AdventHealth Toyota Camry XSE:

“I’m happy with the progress we have made in the last two races and the goal is the same, to finish the race, and to improve across the board. We made some strides in Texas and understanding what we need to come to the racetrack with setup-wise and build on key learnings.”

PETTY 75TH ANNIVERSARY

ABOUT PETTY 75th: The 2024 season marks a significant milestone in the history of the Petty family as they have helped define stock car racing for 75 years. Their commitment to the sport and the people who make it possible – behind the wheel, under the hood, in the back office, and beyond – has shaped the growth and success of NASCAR. Their LEGACY lives on with the countless fans, drivers, technicians, and team members they touched. Throughout 2024, LEGACY M.C. will celebrate the Petty family and share countless memories with friends and fans at race tracks across the country.

KP at KS: Kyle Petty made seven starts at Kansas Speedway starting in 2002, one year after the track opened. Petty led two laps in his first attempt driving the No. 45 for Petty Enterprises.

This Week in Petty History: Ritchie Petty made his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Talladega Superspeedway on May 2nd, 1993. Ritchie ran the No. 53 for his father, Maurice Petty; he qualified 34th and finished 25th, running alongside his cousin Kyle, who finished 18th on the day.

Grand Marshal: “The King” will be honored as the Grand Marshal for this weekend’s AdventHealth 400, taking responsibility for the most famous words in racing and other pre-race festivities for the first race weekend in Kansas of the 2024 season.

BROADCAST INFO

KANSAS SPEEDWAY
SUNDAY May 5th @ 3:00 PM ET

ABOUT OUR PARTNERS

ABOUT AdventHealth: With a sacred mission of Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ, AdventHealth is a connected system of care for every stage of life and health. More than 90,000 team members across hundreds of care sites including physician practices, hospitals, outpatient clinics, home health agencies and hospice centers provide individualized, wholistic care. A shared vision, common values, focus on whole-person health and commitment to making communities healthier unify the system’s more than 50 hospital campuses in diverse markets throughout nine states. For more information about AdventHealth, visit AdventHealth.com/news

ABOUT DOLLAR TREE, INC.: Dollar Tree, a Fortune 200 Company, operated 16,622 stores across 48 states and five Canadian provinces as of October 28, 2023. Stores operate under the brands of Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree Canada. To learn more about the Company, visit DollarTree.com

ABOUT LEGACY MOTOR CLUB: LEGACY MOTOR CLUB™ is a professional auto racing club owned by businessman and entrepreneur Maurice “Maury” J. Gallagher and seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson. The CLUB competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series fielding the No. 42 Toyota Camry XSE of John Hunter Nemechek, the No. 43 Toyota Camry XSE of Erik Jones, and the No. 84 limited schedule entry for Johnson. LEGACY M.C. also competes in the Extreme E Series. Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty “The King” serves as CLUB Ambassador. With a unique title signifying a nod to car clubs of past eras, LEGACY M.C. is an inclusive club for all motorsport enthusiasts to celebrate the past and future legacies of its members, while competing for wins and championships at NASCAR’s elite level. To keep up-to-date with the latest news, information and exclusive content, follow LEGACY MOTOR CLUB™ on Facebook, X, Instagram and at LEGACYMOTORCLUB.com

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SpeedwayMedia.com

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