Denny Hamlin: 'Dang it, I didn't want Jimmie Johnson to come back'

Although Denny Hamlin has no problems with Jimmie Johnson off or on the track, he didn’t want to see Superman return this way. It has nothing to do with how Johnson drives, but it has a lot to do with how poorly his No. 84 car is performing week in and week out in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Jimmie Johnson making his return to NASCAR as a driver/owner is interesting. He started with a start at Daytona. Then he went to COTA, where he finished dead last due to a freak accident on Lap 1. His day at Charlotte was even worse.

“Jimmie had a tough race,” Denny Hamlin recalled on the latest episode of Actions Detrimental. “Hate that. I saw an article where he was talking about you know, he just felt ill-prepared going into this race, as kind of a part-time team. That’s a strain anyway on your company. … It was tough. He didn’t feel prepared. I didn’t see what caused the incident, I just saw a headline that said ‘Jimmie says he didn’t know he was three-wide when he got in the wreck.’

“I hate, hate seeing it. Because we talked about it in our pilot episode that like, ‘dang it I didn’t want Jimmie [Johnson] to come back.’ Because the most likely scenario is gonna be that he was going to struggle. I didn’t want to see Superman have his kryptonite. Father time is undefeated, for sure. Not only that let’s be real too, when you’re driving Hendrick versus LEGACY, LEGACY is an up-and-coming team. Just coming into the Cup Series, it’s going to have its bumps in the road. And certainly, I know that he’s very optimistic with the change over to Toyota next year.”

Denny Hamlin brings up a good point

Is there anything that Jimmie Johnson can do besides keep racing? It seems that a switch to Toyota could give the entire organization a boost. So, maybe we all just wait and see what happens in 2024?

Denny Hamlin, like many of us, saw Johnson and his LEGACY Motor Club team not just struggle, but have all three cars behind the wall for various reasons. Erik Jones was back on the track at one point (59 laps down), but Noah Gragson and Seven-Time were sidelined early.

It is clear that there is an issue with the organization as a whole, but that’s just being new. Plus some bad luck and a lot of changes with the Next Gen car. Johnson spun out in a way that many Cup Series drivers spun out just a season ago. Getting used to the new car is just as important as having your pit crew ready to go.

Will we ever see Jimmie Johnson competing for the win in this Next Gen era? For now, it is hard to imagine.