Everybody expected huge things for the team after Jimmie Johnson bought into the former Petty GMS Racing team and its rebranding to Legacy Motor Club.
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With two young drivers in Erik Jones and Noah Gragson, along with a part-time schedule for the seven-time Cup champion Johnson, there was major buzz around the team.
The excitement quickly vanished throughout last season and Legacy embarked on some major changes.
It dropped Gragson during the Michigan race weekend following the discovery of an insensitive tweet, but the biggest news of all was its departure from Chevrolet to Toyota for 2024.
It was also during the second half of the 2023 season that the team named Cal Wells III as CEO of the organization. History shows he has been a huge asset for teams he has worked with, and he has enjoyed a close relationship with Toyota, beginning with the manufacturer's venture into IndyCar during the 1990s.
Even after years of great work between team co-owner Maury Gallagher and Chevrolet, sharing great success in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, there was a major problem that arose between Legacy and Chevrolet.
Wells had plenty to talk about on that front as he spoke on the team's behalf during EPARTRADE's Race Industry Week. According to AutoWeek, Wells was very clear that Chevy was giving the team the "tier three" treatment and that didn't sit well within the organization.
"Unfortunately (GM) didn't feel that way," Wells said. "And they left (the team) at what I would consider a tier three, where the information was very limited and intentional. I mean, this isn't to say that (Vice President of GM Performance and Motorsports) Jim Campbell and (Executive Director of GM Motorsports) Eric Warren didn't pay a lot of attention to Gallagher Motorsports and then Jimmie and then Richard Petty, and then how it continued to evolve into Legacy, because they did. But they had tier-one teams that they had made huge investments in and they were wanting to appropriately support their other true key partner teams."
In other words, Legacy felt that it wasn't going to get the horses like Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing or even Team Trackhouse. Without an equal level of support Legacy believe it would be left behind.
As for why Toyota, Wells believes that it will give Legacy the "tier-one" level it wants because the Toyota's main attraction is Joe Gibbs Racing (23XI Racing gets its equipment from JGR). Toyota has always lacked depth in the number of teams and cars it fields in NASCAR; by adding Legacy it now has three more cars to compete with on most weekends.
It still feels wrong that Jimmie Johnson, who raced a Chevrolet his whole career, has gone to Toyota, but at the end of the day the sport is a business and Legacy had to do what it thinks is best for it to succeed.
