Jimmie Johnson was planning to compete in more than three races during the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, but a family tragedy resulted in his first season running part-time for Legacy Motor Club, the team he joined as a co-owner that year, being cut short. In 2024, he increased his schedule to feature nine events.
That put the seven-time Cup Series champion at 698 career starts, so when he only scheduled starts in the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway for 2025, it led to speculation that he was aiming to hit exactly 700 and then fully step away from Cup Series competition to focus squarely on team ownership.
Johnson initially retired from full-time competition after the 2020 season, after which point he competed in IndyCar for two seasons before returning to the Cup Series part-time. However, aside from the fact that 700 is 700, there was never any substance to this rumor.
Johnson confirmed this when he announced that he plans to run the inaugural race at the Coronado Street Course in June 2026. That would obviously put him at 701 (or more, depending on potential further additions to his schedule).
Jimmie Johnson retiring after 2026?
But what is interesting about Johnson's 2026 plans is that, while they are technically subject to change, he has not confirmed anything else. He ran the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in 2023, 2024, and 2025, but he hasn't yet confirmed either for 2026.
With Naval Base Coronado being just 20 miles from his hometown of El Cajon, could the California native be looking to call it quits after taking part in the inaugural running of NASCAR's newest race in the Golden State?
It's certainly possible, but there isn't much substance to this rumor either, at least at the moment. Plus, Johnson, who just turned 50 years old, could technically add the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 to his schedule and still retire after the Coronado race, as the two crown jewel events are scheduled to take place earlier in the season (February and May, respectively).
So the fact that he hasn't confirmed either one of those two races yet probably isn't indicative of a pending retirement, in and of itself.
It is interesting, however, that the Coronado race is the first "new" race on Johnson's schedule since he returned to the series in 2023; it's not like he has specifically targeted those events, though he did take part in the 2024 Brickyard 400, when the race returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval for the first time since 2020, and he did plan to run the inaugural Chicago Street Race in 2023 before the tragedy resulted in a late change of plans.
At the end of the day, Johnson is probably going to drive the No. 84 Toyota for as long as he wants to compete, especially since he's now the majority owner of the Toyota organization that currently fields full-time entries for both John Hunter Nemechek and Erik Jones.
And after some read too much into him lining up only starts 699 and 700 in 2025 by assuming he planned to be done afterward, it's hard to imagine that him scheduling a race near his hometown means he's absolutely planning on being done post-2026.