In only its second year in the NASCAR Cup Series, Legacy Motor Club has managed to stay in the news for a plethora of reasons.
From being partly owned by Jimmie Johnson to switching manufacturers after the team’s first season, Legacy has implemented several strategies in its efforts to compete at the highest level of the sport, and it just made a couple more decisions.
Bobby Kennedy has become the team’s general manager, while Joey Cohen, who had been Legacy’s competition director, has exited.
Veterans of the sport like Kennedy move into administrative roles all the time, but Cohen held a vital role in any team headquarters. Competition directors, in some ways, can be viewed as the unsung heroes of the sport.
Among other things, competition directors are in charge of overseeing the implementation of NASCAR’s rules on the cars, as well as making sure that the cars maintain the highest level of competitiveness while adhering to those same rules. Competition directors are in many cases part of the upper echelon of decision-makers when it comes to how the cars race on the weekends.
Some competition directors even oversee things like pit crew staffing and the hiring or releasing of engineering units, the latter of which are incredibly important in improving the team’s cars from week to week — something that Legacy has not had much luck with this season.
This has not been the season that Legacy had hoped for in its debut year with Toyota. Of the four different drivers that have run a race for Legacy in 2024, none have managed a single top five, and only four have finished inside the top 10 in 21 races. DNFs have plagued the young team this season; that number currently sits at 16.
The responsibility of those finishes does not solely rely on the recently released Cohen. However, a change at the top has been known to spark change within an organization. Typically, changes in positions such as competition directors lead to more down the road.
For comparison, think about when a new football coach is hired at any major university. Typically, they want to get coaches around them that adhere to their own system and know how it needs to be implemented. The same principle applies to high-level NASCAR teams.
Cohen isn’t the only competition director to part ways with their team this season. Andy Petree, the former competition director at Richard Childress Racing, was announced as retiring this year, too.
Personnel moves are not at all uncommon in the sport. In fact, they happen nearly every day at some level throughout the three major series. However, the quickness with which those moves happen varies, and Legacy is certainly on the swifter end of that scale.
The owners of Legacy have made it no secret that they want to compete as early as possible and have been bold in their pursuits of doing so. Changing manufacturers after one season and bringing in a fresh face to the driving stable in John Hunter Nemechek, even if it was under debatable circumstances and now making organizational moves before the team’s first full season with Toyota is even complete? These are all sweeping changes and have all taken place within the last year.
The secret sauce for Legacy is getting those changes to stick. Like any good fan of The Sopranos will tell you, the secret isn’t always in the sauce, though. Sometimes it’s how it’s stirred. Legacy is going to continue to dig for success. The pockets are deep enough, the history is prominent enough and the desire is very obviously there. It just all needs to stir together the right way.
That hasn’t happened quite yet, but with change looming in Legacy headquarters, those with an optimistic eye on the team more than likely have some moving and shaking to which to look forward.
About the author
Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s Cowbell Corner, an AP Wire reporter, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host and master's student at Mississippi State University. Soon, Tanner will be pursuing a PhD. in Mass Media Studies. Tanner began working with Frontstretch as an Xfinity Series columnist in 2022.
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“Could Changes at Legacy Motor Club Help Performance?”
If history is any indicator, probably not. This team has tried something every other year, but nothing seems to move the needle.
Rearranging a deck chair on the Titanic!