Jimmie Johnson Says Nascar’s Bottom Line Has Changed, Hitting Some Drivers Hard

Jimmie Johnson spent over 20 years racing in NASCAR. During that time, he became a legend winning a record 7 NASCAR Cup series titles tying him with Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. It was a feat no one could have imagined with the young driver from El Cajon, California made his Cup debut in 2001.

Johnson won 83 races in Cup. All of those coming with crew chief Chad Knaus on top of the pit box. Johnson left the sport in 2020 and now races part time in the NTT IndyCar series. He’s now peeling back the curtain; giving everyone a peek of what life for a NASCAR driver is really like.

Perhaps the beginning of the end of his storied career in NASCAR came in 2018. It was the first time he and Knaus would be racing against each other, and not on the same team at Hendrick Motorsports. The duo was winless in 2018 and Hendrick moved Knaus to No. 24 team while Johnson’s team was led by first Kevin Meendering and finally Cliff Daniels.

Swapping crew chiefs is not an uncommon technique multi-car teams use when performance is lacking. At the time Johnson and Knaus had gone winless in a season for the first time since they got together. As it turns out though there was more to the story, much more.

In a wide-ranging interview on In Depth with Graham Bensinger debuting this weekend, Johnson for the first time publicly talked about why one of the most famous driver-crew chief pairings in NASCAR history was suddenly split.

“When times got tough,” Johnson said. “Chad reverted back to the crew chief that he was when we first started.”

Johnson said Knaus was starting to micromanage and trying to tell a 7-time NASCAR champion what he needed to do, and how he needed to do it. Johnson would have none of it. No longer a rookie, Johnson pushed back, at one point telling Knaus to f—k off.

“I did and that was… kind of the start of the decay over probably a five- or eight-year period of time,” Johnson said. “And he and I both so wish we could go back and correct that. Because now looking back on it, it was a defense mechanism for him and he was only doing it because he cared, and I just got tired of hearing it. And so, I started firing back…”

Johnson said he knew the end was coming before the start of their final season together in 2018. The year before Johnson and his family began spending more and more time in Colorado, eventually moving there during the offseason in 2017.

“And that really, really got under Chad’s skin,” Johnson said. “That I wanted to be in Aspen and not in Charlotte. And things started to get personal then, and him questioning where my heart was with the team and the time and effort I wanted to spend to be with the team was really kind of the starting fracture point.”

Johnson would not win a race in NASCAR after he and Knaus parted ways. His last NASCAR race was at Phoenix in 2020.

Johnson also revealed for the first time something few outside NASCAR ever knew; since 2015 NASCAR earnings potential has dropped by roughly 50%, which has hit some drivers hard.

“The bottom line has moved so much; the way fans consume the sport has changed a lot in the last 15 years or more,” he said.

“I would say that through earnings and potential for a team, it’s been down probably 50%. From a driver contract standpoint – from 2015 to where it is now – it’s probably half…,” he added.

“What starts that whole process is the tune-in numbers. The tune-in numbers drive the sponsorship numbers; that obviously drives the purse and certainly the sponsorship on a given car that a driver shares in.”

And that loss of income for the sport is affecting drivers, mainly those who don’t race for the big teams or have superstar status.

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“The great fortune of being a top driver in a 50% reduction: it’s still a big number,” he said “…as the sport has been evolving and actually kind of on a downturn, and now I actually believe it is ticking up, but on that downturn the guys on the bottom side … I’ve heard rumors where these drivers can’t afford permanent or temporary insurance. Which is just kind of standard issue in a sport with so much risk. And you hear drivers [say], ‘I can’t afford it. I’m not gonna do it.’”

The sport is indeed ticking up. There have been changes to the cars, fan engagement has evolved and is better tracked, and ratings are also moving up. NASCAR president Steve Phelps said recently that a big part of this upward trend the sport is seeing is in part due to new scheduling. This past season NASCAR raced at new venues, on dirt, and at more road courses. And the 2022 schedule features even more new venues and will open in the most unlikely of places: the L.A. Coliseum, where NASCAR’s Next Gen car will make its competitive debut in a non-points exhibition race in February.

One thing hasn’t changed, however. NASCAR’s Cup series still holds over 36 races. And if 7-time champion, and future NASCAR Hall of Famer, Johnson was in charge of the sport, that’s one thing he would change.

“I’ve always firmly felt that there’s just too much racing in NASCAR,” Johnson said. “That’s my opinion and I’ve had that conversation with executives at NASCAR. Reducing the schedule down to 25-28 races I think would be the ideal way to go about it.”