Can LEGACY Motor Club get back to victory lane in 2026?

The last time LEGACY Motor Club won a NASCAR Cup Series race, it wasn't even called LEGACY Motor Club yet. 

Erik Jones won the 2022 Southern 500 at Darlington on Sept. 4, 2022 for what was then known as Petty-GMS Racing. But after a rebrand, a manufacturer change to Toyota and NASCAR Hall of Famer and seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson entering the ownership fold, things have changed a bit. 

LMC is entering its third year with Toyota in 2026 and will once again sport two full-time drivers in Jones and John Hunter Nemechek. Johnson will also compete in the Daytona 500 and the June 21 race at Naval Base Coronado in California. 

2024 was a tough year for the organization as it switched manufacturers, but 2025 saw the team improve. Jones and Nemechek finished 24th and 25th in the Cup Series standings, respectively, a year-over-year improvement of four positions for Jones and nine for Nemechek. 

Can LEGACY Motor Club win again? 

That's a difficult question to answer. 

On one hand, the top teams in the sport have figured out NASCAR's Next-Gen car. 2022-esque parity is no longer prevalent, and aside from superspeedways, which remain heavily reliant on luck to win, predicting a win in 2026 for LMC seems like a reach.

But superspeedways are a possibility. Jones got his first Cup Series win at Daytona with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2018, while Johnson finished third in the 2025 Daytona 500. 

It's not as if Jones and Nemechek aren't high quality drivers, either. Nemechek won seven races en route to a Championship 4 berth during the 2023 O'Reilly Auto Parts Series season, while Jones was once touted as one of NASCAR's best prospects during the mid-2010s. 

A superspeedway win at Daytona, Atlanta or Talladega is likely the organization's best shot at capturing another checkered flag, but Jones is a wizard at Darlington and Nemechek is more than capable of holding his own at the front of the field if he can find it.

By the time Daytona rolls around, LMC will have another offseason of work behind it and plenty of momentum to work with as it tries to get back to victory lane.