After a season in which barriers were broken and NASCAR managed to kick-start the national sports scene while a pandemic raged, there are still more changes at hand as the sanctioning body prepares to open the new season this month at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
The many changes to the team lineups are earth-shaking, and that goes for drivers, crew chiefs and other personnel. The biggest changes are in the driver’s seat.
The most significant won’t come as a surprise. For the first time since 2002, Jimmie Johnson won’t be in the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. The seven-time Cup Series champion has hung up his NASCAR helmet and will try his hand on road courses in the NTT IndyCar Series this season.
He leaves with 686 career starts, 83 victories and those seven championships, locking him in a select group with only Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.
Alex Bowman moves from the No. 88 formerly driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the No. 48, alongside crew chief Greg Ives, who also moves over to the 48 squad. Full backing from Ally Financial awaits the duo.
That’s not the only change at HMS, either. The biggest news of the late-season rush surrounding the championship battle was the reinstatement and subsequent return to the series of Kyle Larson, who will drive the No. 5 car for Hendrick Motorsports.
Larson lost his ride at Chip Ganassi Racing after an incident during an iRacing event and was banned from the sport for the remainder of the season. After bootstrapping a winged sprint car campaign that saw him win a slew of races and ignite the sort of buzz that used to be attached to somebody with the last name Kinser or Swindell, Larson successfully applied for reinstatement to NASCAR.
He takes over the former No. 88 team, with Cliff Daniels on the pit box. Sponsorship has not yet been announced.
Chase Elliott, the reigning Cup Series champion returns in the No. 9 and William Byron completes the Hendrick brigade in the No. 24 Chevrolet.
The biggest splash in a year where there were so many came when it was announced Michael Jordan would form a NASCAR Cup Series team with longtime friend Denny Hamlin. The duo tabbed Bubba Wallace to drive the No. 23XI Racing Toyota.
Mike Wheeler, Hamlin’s former crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing, will call the shots for Wallace and the team purchased Germain Racing’s charter. It also has a technical alliance with JGR. The ride is fully funded by a bevy of sponsors and is sure to have a lot of eyeballs on it beginning at Daytona.
Speaking of JGR, there were a few changes there as well.
Christopher Bell now drives the team’s No. 20 Camry, replacing Eric Jones, while Adam Stevens moves from Kyle Busch’s No. 18 to be Bell’s crew chief. Jones signed with Richard Petty Motorsports to pilot the iconic No. 43 for The King, with Jerry Baxter as his crew chief.
Busch will have Ben Beshore as his crew chief after several seasons with Stevens. The No. 11 team (Hamlin and crew chief Chris Gabeheart) and the No. 19 team for Martin Truex Jr. and crew chief James Small have relatively few changes for the coming season.
Ross Chastain, who was slated to move up to the Cup Series in 2019 but was caught in the DC Solar imbroglio at Chip Ganassi Racing, finally makes it to the top series in the No. 42 Chevrolet after Matt Kenseth re-retired at the end of the season. Kenseth had replaced Larson when the latter was suspended last season.
Daniel Suarez left Gaunt Racing and moves to a new team, Trackhouse Racing, formed by Justin Marks. The Mexican driver will have Travis Mack as his crew chief, coming off two seasons with Michael Annett at JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series, and a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing that includes the use of ECR Engines. During the offseason, RCR and Hendrick Engines announced they would combine their efforts to produce a Chevy engine to take on their rivals at Ford and Toyota.
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