AVONDALE, Ariz. — Jimmie Johnson’s NASCAR retirement and IndyCar experiment lasted all of two seasons.

The seven-time NASCAR champion is returning in 2023 to the collection that made him a worldwide motorsports star because the part-owner of Petty GMS. He’ll additionally enter about 5 Cup races.

Johnson introduced that his first race would be the season-opening Daytona 500, the place he is a two-time winner.

“I’ve had a watchful eye on the possession half and what’s occurring with NASCAR, and the chance that I’ve right here, the enterprise construction and the mannequin with NASCAR charters is simply so completely different from than anything in motorsports,” Johnson informed The Related Press. “I wish to be a part of it. We actually watched Michael Jordan be part of, what the Trackhouse Racing of us have accomplished, and there is all these rumors of people that wish to get into the game.

“I am honored and grateful that I’ll be a part of it.”

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His automobile quantity and sponsors — and perhaps even the present Petty GMS identify — are all a piece in progress for Johnson, who turned 47 in September.

On his bucket record are the Coca-Cola 600, a race he is gained 4 instances, and he’d love if NASCAR made him eligible for the 2023 All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina.

Johnson additionally mentioned he nonetheless desires to do “The Double” of the Indianapolis 500 and Coke 600 on the identical day, however he is on maintain as Chip Ganassi shapes the group Johnson left after two seasons. However, even when an Indy 500 experience materializes, the All-Star race would battle with Indy 500 qualifying. And, he is now half proprietor of a Chevrolet workforce, so that will theoretically forestall him from racing with Ganassi, a Honda workforce.

Johnson made his Indy 500 debut in Might and though he proved first rate on the IndyCar ovals — he skipped them his first season — the highway and avenue programs have been a battle and he admitted to being burned out on the finish of the total season. He mentioned he’d step again from full-time racing and was eyeing a bucket record of about 10 occasions, most probably together with the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a NASCAR consultant.

When he got here to that late-September determination to step away, Johnson insisted he had no thought what he wished to do subsequent.

It took about six weeks for Johnson to get again into NASCAR via conversations initiated by the administration agency shared by Johnson and Erik Jones, the Petty GMS driver he simply inherited.

Johnson mentioned he had no talks with Hendrick Motorsports about possession alternatives because the GMS deal got here collectively out of the blue. He informed the AP alerted Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon of his plans. Johnson drove 20 years for Hendrick and gained 83 Cup races within the No. 48 Chevrolet.

“It is a large day for our sport. Jimmie is among the all-time nice champions on the racetrack, and I do know he’ll apply the identical mentality to his position as a workforce proprietor,” Hendrick mentioned in a press release. “… Seeing Jimmie in a firesuit together with his identify on the roof of a Chevrolet on the Daytona 500 goes to be very particular for lots of people. Competing towards him will definitely be a change, and a giant problem, however we welcome his return to NASCAR and sit up for the following chapter of a really exceptional profession.”

Johnson’s seven championships ties him with Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt, each Corridor of Famers. He made his announcement with GMS founder Maury Gallagher on Friday at Phoenix Raceway, the place he retired from NASCAR after the 2020 season finale. The Hendrick Motorsports torch was handed that day when Chase Elliott gained the Cup title – Johnson completed fifth, better of the non-title contenders – and Johnson started chasing his IndyCar dream. He had not been to a NASCAR race since that 2020 finale.

Now he desires again in and with a much bigger piece of the motion. He will get it with Petty GMS, an upstart two-car workforce funded by Gallagher, chairman of Allegiant Air, and fronted by Petty.

Jones in September gave “The King” his 2 hundredth win within the famed No. 43 automobile, and earlier than this deal was struck, the workforce had already determined to dump Ty Dillon for firebrand Noah Gragson subsequent season.

The velocity wherein the deal was accomplished was astonishing to each Gallagher and Johnson, and Gallagher informed the AP that Johnson, like Brad Keselowski at RFK Racing, financially bought his stake within the workforce and will not be a figurehead.

“Jimmie is only a large man and in my older age, I worth relationships as a lot as something,” Gallagher informed the AP. “I am extra of a background man. I would like Jimmie and Richard to be the faces of the group, assistance on the economics and the operations is only a huge bonus.”

GMS has in a couple of decade has grown from a Truck Sequence workforce right into a first-year Cup group that acquired Richard Petty Motorsports and its 85-year-old Corridor of Fame namesake. Regardless that Jones has been aggressive and gained at Darlington, it did not qualify for the playoffs and Gallagher mentioned GMS has been overshadowed by Justin Marks, who in his second season as proprietor of Trackhouse Racing has driver Ross Chastain in Sunday’s championship race.