HAMPTON, Ga. -- Legacy Motor Club has shown major progress this season, its third since Jimmie Johnson came on as co-owner. Yet, the team continues to practice restraint despite having two drivers regularly contend for top-10 finishes.
"Yes, we want to run up front and contend for wins every week, right? But you can't have your expectations set there, in my opinion, or you're just going to kind of disappoint yourself in a sense," John Hunter Nemechek told AltDriver at EchoPark Speedway.
It could be more difficult for Nemechek to show restraint in his second season with Legacy Motor Club. After all, the North Carolina native has already set a career-high with six top-10 finishes and one top-five. His average finish of 18.7 is by far the best of his Cup Series career.
The thing is, Nemechek knows that Legacy MC is still early into its tenure as a Toyota-affiliated team. The team had to take some lumps in 2024 after deciding to make the manufacturer change without forming any alliances.
This offseason featured even more changes. The team hired veteran crew chief Travis Mack to run the No. 42 team. It added crew chief Chad Johnston as manager of race engineering. Knighthead Capital joined as a minority partner while co-owner Maury Gallagher moved into an ambassador role.
"I mean, you're two years into it, right -- or this is your second year, relatively," Nemechek said. "You have a year of notes under your belt and still a lot of personnel changes from last year to this year.
"It's pretty much a whole new group. Again, it is a whole new group for me on the 42 team as well."
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Scott Coleman/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
While Nemechek is a newer addition to Legacy MC, his teammate has been around for multiple organizational changes. Erik Jones joined the team for 2021 when it was the single-car operation known as Richard Petty Motorsports. He was there in 2022 as it became Petty GMS Motorsports with Ty Dillon as its second driver.
Jones remained in the No. 43 Chevrolet in 2023 as the team became Legacy Motor Club, and he worked alongside multiple teammates. He was there when the team switched to Toyota in 2024, and he began working with yet another new teammate.
Jones achieved success during the lone season of Petty GMS. He won the Southern 500 for the second time in his career, and he posted top-10 finishes in 13 of the 36 races. His average finish of 16.3 was the third best of his career.
The 2023 and '24 seasons, however, were more of a struggle for the veteran. He only posted a combined nine top-10 finishes and two top-fives.
"I mean, it's so much changed from when I signed on with RPM to what it is today," Jones told AltDriver. "I think there's four of us in the company that were there the day I walked in the door the first time that are still here.
"So it is hard to sometimes remember that, I guess, especially last year in the performance we were having, because we had seen success in '22 and a little bit even in '23, we started running good again. And so '24 was really tough just to feel like, man, I just took a step back and the performance wasn't there. And it wasn't getting better at the time."
Jones only has two top-10 finishes this season with one top five, but the finishes haven't reflected how the team has performed. He has finished 18th or better in seven of the last eight races, and he has posted his best average starting position (20.4) since the 2020 season when he drove for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Even last week at Pocono, Jones ran solidly inside the top 10 and gained six stage points. He was inside the top 10 during the final stage when a caution disrupted green flag pit stops and buried him in the field. He ultimately recovered by finishing 13th.
"The last month-and-a-half has been reviving, for sure, for me, just getting my spirits back up, really," Jones said. "It wasn't necessarily a confidence thing for me.
"It was just like, 'Man, we're not putting together the stuff we should and bringing what we should to the track.' And so just running up front again and challenging the top 10 has been such a good reminder for me of why we do what we do."
Jones running better doesn't mean that he automatically expects to win before the season, nor does he expect to win his third Southern 500 this season. He has confidence that he can, but he continues to show restraint instead of setting these specific goals.
At this point, Jones and Nemechek just want to continue steadily building Legacy Motor Club into a contender.