Jimmie Johnson won’t race through the streets of Chicago this weekend.
The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and co-owner of Legacy Motor Club announced on Tuesday that he has “elected to withdraw” his No. 84 Chevrolet from this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race. The announcement comes a few hours after news broke that Johnson had family ties to a shooting and killing in Muskogee, Okla.
“The Johnson family has asked for privacy at this time and no further statements will be made,” Legacy Motor Club said in a statement.
Johnson doesn’t race full-time in the Cup Series anymore. But the household name announced he’d run in a few of the biggest races this season in March. Among those races: the Daytona 500, Circuit of the Americas, the Coca-Cola 600 and the Chicago Street Race, which is coming up this weekend.
That all changed Tuesday afternoon, however, when Muskogee police said two people and their 11-year-old grandson were found dead after a shooting Monday night. According to Fox23, a local news station, police said 68-year-old Terry Janway is suspected of shooting and killing her husband, 69-year-old Jack Janway, and their 11-year-old grandson, Dalton.
Terry and Jack’s daughter, Chandra, is the wife of Jimmie Johnson.
This weekend’s race will be the first of its kind for the NASCAR Cup Series. The best stock car drivers in the world will take over the streets of Chicago on Sunday starting at 5:30 p.m. ET — transforming Lake Shore Drive, Michigan Avenue, Columbus Drive and surrounding thoroughfares into a 12-turn, 2.2-mile street course that starts and ends at Buckingham Fountain. Along the way, drivers will pass through some of the most memorable parts of the city, including Grant Park and Soldier Field.
