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KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Legacy Motor Club sent a ripple through the NASCAR Cup Series garage after announcing Tuesday that the two-car team will switch to Toyota for the 2024 season, a shift from its current relationship with Chevrolet.
Its leap in alliances adds a pair of cars to a manufacturer in serious need of more entrants. The only current Toyotas on track are the four fielded by Joe Gibbs Racing and two by 23XI Racing. For the time being at Toyota, the more the merrier, particularly at superspeedways where drafting partners can more swiftly equal success.
“Talking with Toyota (executives), they’re excited because it’s numbers, right?” Bubba Wallace, driver of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota, said Saturday at Kansas Speedway. “We’re getting more numbers, more cars to play, especially (super)speedway stuff, so strategy can vary now a little bit. Still a minority, but I think numbers (are) important for sure.”
MORE: Full details on Legacy’s move | Kansas schedule
Martin Truex Jr., the series’ most recent winner and 2017 champion, echoed Wallace’s observations, thankful for more resources to pull from as a whole in the near future.
“I think it’s good for us. I think any time we get more cars in the Toyota camp, it’s more information, it’s more ideas being thrown around,” Truex said. “And then, especially when we go superspeedway racing, it’s more partners for us that we’ve struggled to not have. I think it’s good on all fronts.”
His teammate, Tyler Reddick, is looking forward to having some familiar faces join the brigade in the upcoming year. Legacy M.C. drivers Noah Gragson and Erik Jones, who drive the Nos. 42 and 43 cars, respectively, both used to compete for Toyota. Jones rode the Toyota train from Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Craftsman Truck Series all the way to JGR in Cup, while Gragson spent two years at KBM.
“Really excited about it,” Reddick said. “Obviously, the more of us that we have out there on the race track certainly really helps at the superspeedways, but just having a larger pool of drivers and crew chiefs and minds that can share information with one another and work together. Obviously, I guess I don’t know how all that’s gonna work out. I don’t want to say anything before I should. But certainly, on the drivers’ side, getting to work with Noah again is going to be a lot of fun. Me and him worked together a lot when we were at Chevy, and Erik’s familiar with the Toyota camp and has had a lot of success with Toyota as well.”
Jones and Gragson will also, in a way, reunite with former KBM teammate Christopher Bell, the driver of the No. 20 Toyota at JGR that Jones previously piloted.
“What’s ironic is I’ve been teammates with both of them already,” Bell said. “It’s gonna be really interesting to see how they fit into the equation. I don’t know if we’re gonna have debriefs with them or if they’re gonna kind of be on their own separate page. So there’s a lot of details that I’m not aware of yet. That’ll really tell the tale.”
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