Jimmie revs up for IndyCar challenge

Jimmie Johnson might be done with NASCAR, but he's certainly not done with racing.

The seven-time Cup Series champion recently confirmed he will compete in IndyCar Series road－and street-course races for Chip Ganassi Racing over the next two seasons.

"Ganassi was highly motivated to give me a chance to drive a car to see what I thought, and the experience was all that I hoped for and more," Johnson told Associated Press.

"I left a good impression with them where there's definitely interest on their side and now it's time to formalize things and get the ball rolling."

Johnson, 45, announced before this season that it would be his final full-time campaign in NASCAR. He hasn't won a Cup Series race since June 2017 and has missed the playoffs in each of the past two seasons.

Last November he said that just because he was calling it quits in NASCAR didn't mean he was taking his foot off the accelerator.

"This is not retirement from racing; this is stepping down from the 38 weeks a year that it takes to be competitive and the time that goes with that," he said.

Although the NASCAR veteran doesn't have much experience in open-wheel cars, in 2018 he participated in a McLaren Formula 1 ride swap with Fernando Alonso at Bahrain International Circuit.

Johnson's move to IndyCar should be a huge boost for a series that continues to struggle for mainstream recognition outside the Indianapolis 500. He said in July that he'd "have to do a lot of selling to my wife" to enter the iconic Brickyard race, adding: "My true desire right now is just to run the road courses."

Johnson is the first NASCAR driver to move to IndyCar since Juan Pablo Montoya joined Team Penske in 2014. A seven-time Formula 1 winner, Montoya also raced two full-time seasons in CART.

Johnson is tied with Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty for the most NASCAR Cup Series titles, while his new CGR teammate Scott Dixon has 49 wins across 291 Indy-Car starts and is currently on pace to win his sixth IndyCar title.

Dixon had nothing but praise for Johnson following his test session in July.

"Tough conditions, really low grip, and obviously very hot, but he got a good feel of what the car's like and it was a lot of fun just to kind of talk back and forth about what things are different for him and what things are quite similar in driving style," said Dixon.

"He's a very good listener and very able at replicating video which is not always very easy to do. So he sees something in the data or on the video and he's actually able to replicate it, which is pretty cool."