How Jimmie Johnson Achieved a Net Worth of $120 Million
Jimmie Johnson, at the very tender age of four years old, had already started racing motorbikes. The California born driver, now at 43 years of age, ranks amongst the greatest NASCAR racers of all time. Additionally, he also happens to be among the wealthiest drivers with an astonishing net worth of about 120 million US dollars. In fact, he is the third richest; behind Jeff Gordon who stands at two hundred million US dollars and Dale Earnhardt Jr. who stands at three hundred million US dollars. By looking closely at Jimmie’s racing accolades, accomplishments and some of his lucrative off the racing track activities, we shall offer you a look at how the driver went about pooling together his incredible amount of wealth over the years he has been a NASCAR driver. It is, of course, important to mention that he drives the No. 48 Camaro ZL1 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.
Racing Career
Back in 2002, Johnson started his professional NASCAR Series career. It was at this point that he began planting the seeds for his soon to be realized state of NASCAR Cup dominance. He, in 2002, became the first amateur driver to win twice on the same race track and to lead the points table during a single season. As Jimmie’s stock increased as a race driver, so did his earnings. Consequently, he went from earning just above 212,000 US dollars in 2005 to about 16.2 million US dollars in 2015. Jimmie Johnson, who prides in seven Series Championships, is at par with Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty for the highest number of Cup Series Championships of all time. By the way, five of the seven championships were won in a consecutively. Over his 18 year career, Jimmie Johnson has participated in about 610 Cup Series, 83 career wins, 342 top-ten finishes, 35 pole positions, and 221 top-five finishes. Moreover, Jimmie has won the Daytona championships twice, he is a four-time Brickyard winner and a Coca-Cola 600 winner. He is highly regarded due to his outstanding track winning streaks: he has won eleven times at the Dover Speedway, seven times, and eight times at the Charlotte Speedway, and nine times at the Martinsville Speedway. Also, Johnson became the driver to be named Male Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press. He has earned the Driver of the Year award five times. Clearly, he is not too bad at racing.
Business Ventures and Endorsements
Johnson has been lucky enough to earn so many millions out of his endorsement deals after working with brands such as Seiko Watch, Gatorade, Chevrolet, and Blue Bunny over the past 18 years as a NASCAR driver. Jimmie made about seven million US dollars in 2012 out of his Chevrolet and Gatorade deals and accumulative revenue of approximately six million US dollars the following year, and 6.5 million US dollars in 2014 and 2015. At the moment, Jimmie earns around five million US dollars from sponsorship programs. ‘Superman’ Johnson does not just like earning money; he loves to spend it too. To begin with, he owns a house in North Carolina where he resides with his two daughters, Lydia and Genevieve, and wife, Chandra. After bagging his seventh Sprint Cup, he celebrated with an unconventional house decoration session. Other than his house in Charlotte, Jimmie Johnson also owns an apartment in New York, which he purchased in 2013 at a price of fourteen million US dollars. Given that he is a race car driver, Jimmie has one stunning car collection that is reported to be worth a fortune: the figure hovers at a few hundreds of thousands. In the collection, to name a few, Jimmie Johnson has a Ford Fusion, a Chevy SS, a 1971 Corvette, and a 1967 Camaro.
On the brighter side, Jimmie is not all about making money; he is also very philanthropic as well. In 2006, he launched his foundation, which was tasked with helping communities and families in need. In 2007, Jimmy founded a bowling alley that seeks to support Habitat for all Mankind. Later on that year he launched the Make a Wish Foundation plus numerous other charities. The bowling alley, which hosts golf tournaments every year, has been able to raise about eight million US dollars.
Career Earnings
Jimmie Johnson experienced a wild increment in his salary and net worth in the past few years. In 2015, going by The Richest’s estimations, Jimmie had a net worth of about 100 million US dollars. This figure has increased to about 120 million US dollars as of last year. Jimmie, currently, ranks as the second highest paid NASCAR driver. In 2017, he made about 19.2 million US dollars as income alone. Similarly, other drivers like Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, and Kyle Busch made about 14.6 million, 13.6 million, and 14.7 million US dollars respectively that season.
In 2017, Johnson hit the headlines as he defeated Earnhardt with earnings of about 21.8 million US dollars. Dale Earnhardt had topped the NASCAR earnings chats for seven years in a row until 2016. That same year, he agreed on terms of a contract extension to drive for Hendrick Motorsports up until 2020. The contract is expected to make him the best paid NASCAR driver at the end of the season. Jimmie’s retirement is likely to come soon in the coming years, especially given that he is among the oldest drivers in the sport. However, he still insists that he does not plan to call it a day anytime soon. What inspires thought are questions such as: what will he start doing once he retires? Should he become a pundit like Dale Jr. for NBC? Will he start his own racing team? For sure, only time will tell how he goes about this. Nonetheless, his fans are pretty sure that Jimmie is not yet done winning championships.
