Wachtel Named New Crew Chief for Johnson, No. 84 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Team
Gene Wachtel has been named as the new crew chief for Jimmie Johnson and the No. 84 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB team heading into this weekend's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. The team officially revealed the news, which confirmed a Monday report by TobyChristie.com, in its weekly race preview on Tuesday.
Johnson, a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, left NASCAR to pursue the challenge of racing in the NTT IndyCar Series in 2021, and 2022. Johnson became co-owner of LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, formerly known as Petty GMS, and returned to the NASCAR Cup Series circuit as a part-time driver for the team in 2023.
In nine starts behind the wheel of the No. 84 entry, Johnson has struggled to acclimate to the tricky NASCAR Next Gen race car. His best finish with LEGACY MOTOR CLUB is 28th, which he has achieved on two separate occasions, this year's Daytona 500 and the event at Dover Motor Speedway in April.
Perhaps the crew chief change is precisely what Johnson, 49, needs to return to the top-half of the running order in a series he dominated for two decades.
In August, the team and Jason Burdett, who had been serving as the crew chief for Johnson and the No. 84 team announced that they had parted ways. Burdett has since landed a role as the crew chief for Tanner Gray and the No. 15 TRICON Garage team in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Wachtel, who earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte upon graduating in 2004, has been involved in motorsports since 2005 when he was hired as the Dodge Motorsports Test Team Manager.
Following his run with Dodge, Wachtel had stints at Hendrick Motorsports, where he was a Design and Data Acquisition Engineer, and Stewart-Haas Racing, where he was a Design Engineer, and 7-Post Engineer. After a five-year run with Performance Concepts of the Carolinas, where he served as a simulation consultant and Engineering Developer for General Motors' NASCAR program, he accepted the role of Data Analytics for Joe Gibbs Racing a position he held until the end of 2017.
Wachtel moved to Pratt & Miller in 2017, where he developed data analytics strategies and software utilizing track data to extract performance. Prior to being named the crew chief for LEGACY MOTOR CLUB's part-time No. 84 team, Wachtel had been serving as the Performance Director for LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, a role he will continue in addition to his crew chief duties.
Including this weekend's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, Johnson has three races remaining on his 2024 NASCAR Cup Series driving schedule. Johnson will also race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, October 20 and the season finale at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, November 10.
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.