NASCAR Cup Series: Jimmie Johnson to retire after 2020

Jimmie Johnson has announced that the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season will be his final season as a full-time driver in the series.

Jimmie Johnson has competed in the NASCAR Cup Series since the 2001 season, doing so for Hendrick Motorsports every step of the way. He became a full-time driver in the 2002 season, and he has competed in each of the 648 races that have been contested since the start of that year.

Johnson signed a three-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports to drive the #48 Chevrolet through the 2020 season back in June of 2017.

The 44-year-old El Cajon, California native has now confirmed that the 2020 season will be his 19th and final season as a full-time driver.

Johnson confirmed this decision via a video that he shared on his Twitter page.

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Johnson is one of the most decorated drivers in NASCAR history. He is one of only three seven-time champions along with Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, and he is the only drive to win more than three consecutive titles when he won five in a row from 2006 to 2010. He added title number six in 2013 and title number seven in 2016.

Johnson’s 83 victories are tied for sixth place on the all-time wins list with Cale Yarborough, just one victory shy of a fourth place tie with Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison.

He is currently on a career-high 95-race win drought, having not won a race since he took the checkered flag at Dover International Speedway in June of 2017 for the career-high 11th time. His 16 consecutive winning seasons from 2002 to 2017 rank third highest on the all-time list.

Throughout the first 651 races of his career, he has accumulated 227 top five finishes, 364 top 10 finishes, 36 pole positions, 18,834 laps led out of 184,866 laps contested, an average starting position of 12.0 and an average finishing position of 12.9.

He stated last month Hendrick Motorsports would know his future plans within four to six months. This announcement came far sooner than that, just three days following the conclusion of the 2019 season, the first season in which he failed to qualify for the playoffs, but it was an announcement that he felt he needed to make.

Before the 2019 season began, Johnson stated that “I get to say when I’m done,” and that’s exactly what he did — exactly three years to the day after winning his seventh championship.

Jimmie Johnson is set to attempt to become the first eight-time champion in NASCAR Cup Series history for the fourth and final time in the 2020 season. While today’s news is quite emotional for himself, his family, his team and his many millions of fans, let’s not forget that he still has one year left and 36 races to run before his full-time career ends.