He raced in Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group (MTEG), Short-course Off-road Drivers Association (SODA), and SCORE International, winning rookie of the year in each series.

Owner Rick Hendrick's son Ricky, twin nieces, brother, and chief engine builder Randy Dorton as well as Joe Turner, Scott Lathram were killed in an airplane crash en route to the race.

[32] He and the team kept their hopes up[33] and rallied with five straight Top 2 finishes including a win at Martinsville to come back from eighth in the points standings to take the championship.

One of those included Phoenix in which he won on low fuel and high tire wear after crew chief Chad Knaus decided to stay out late in the race.

[57] During the Daytona 500, Johnson was involved in a crash on lap 2 when he turned into the wall after contact from Elliott Sadler, then was t-boned by David Ragan, also collecting Danica Patrick, Kurt Busch and Trevor Bayne.

At Dover, Johnson led 143 laps but finished 17th when he jumped Juan Pablo Montoya on the last restart causing NASCAR to issue him a penalty.

Returning to Daytona for the Coke Zero 400, Johnson led 94 laps and held off Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick on a green-white-checker finish to win his fourth race of the year.

[88] A few weeks later, Johnson recorded his first win at Michigan, after several years of being deprived of a shot at victory as the result of running out of gas or blowing an engine.

He wasn't so lucky on the second spin late in the race; while running fifth, he spun out again at the same place, and hit the wall in pit road, causing some nose damage.

Johnson's streak of misfortune continued through the next several months, crashing out at Dover, Pocono, Daytona, Kentucky and at Watkins Glen, where he finished last for the first time in his career.

Johnson began the Chase for the Championship by leading a race-high 118 laps at Chicagoland, but received a speeding penalty during a green flag pit stop late in the race, ultimately finished 12th.

Johnson finished 11th in the rain-shortened race at Texas, and 38th at Phoenix after being penalized a lap for passing the pace car coming down to pit road and involved in a wreck on a restart.

The following week, Johnson would finish just outside the Top 10 at Richmond, after colliding with teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr late in the event, leading to an eventual flat tire and spin for the driver of the No.

[97] Johnson scored his third win of the season at Dover in June after passing Kyle Larson on an overtime restart, which ended under caution with a multicar incident behind the two leaders.

In the week following his Dover triumph, during the Axalta presents the Pocono 400, Johnson's brakes failed into turn 1 at a speed of over 200 MPH, resulting in a tremendous impact with the outside SAFER barrier.

Similarly, directly behind Johnson, fellow competitor Jamie McMurray also experienced a brake failure, and impacted the wall hard, igniting a large vehicle fire.

Heading into turn 3, the two race leaders Brad Keselowski and Kasey Kahne battled one another, allowing Johnson to close in and make a three-wide move to the inside.

After having two separate spins, he drove his way through a large multicar accident off turn 2, involving Playoff drivers Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray, and rebounded with an 11th-place finish.

On lap 59 of the Daytona 500, he got caught up in a wreck started by Ryan Blaney, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., which also involved his teammate William Byron, Erik Jones, Daniel Suárez, Trevor Bayne, and Ty Dillon and ended up 38th.

Johnson notably gave teammate and friend Chase Elliott a push to the front stretch when his car ran out of fuel when being congratulated by the rest of the drivers after recording his first career win, at Watkins Glen.

On July 29, 2019, following a string of disappointing finishes during the season, Hendrick Motorsports announced that race engineer Cliff Daniels would replace Meendering as the crew chief of the No.

[116] In September 2019, Johnson missed the playoffs cut for the first time in his NASCAR career after finishing 35th in the Brickyard 400 due to contact with Kurt Busch and William Byron that sent his car crashing hard into the wall.

[137] Johnson's misfortunes continued at Kansas when he was collected in a third-stage crash while running in the top ten,[137][138] followed by a first-stage spin at New Hampshire while fighting for a top-five spot.

[144] In his post-race interview, Johnson lamented his misfortunes during the year including the Coca-Cola 600 disqualification and the positive COVID-19 test; he drew praise from fans for his humility when he congratulated Knaus, who moved to Byron's team, and expressed his gratitude to Hendrick Motorsports for his career.

[161] On January 27, 2025, Johnson was named majority owner of Legacy Motor Club, with Knighthead Capital Management purchasing a minority stake and former co-owner Maury Gallagher stepping back into an ambassador role.

On November 26, 2018, Johnson participated in a motorsports cultural exchange with two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso at Bahrain International Circuit, where both drivers compared their respective race cars.

In 2018, Johnson received the fourth-annual Byrnsie Award, named after the late Fox NASCAR broadcaster Steve Byrnes, during FS1's RaceDay prior to the running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.

[215] At the time of his retirement, Johnson's 83 career points-paying victories made him the winningest active NASCAR driver, in sixth place among the all-time Cup Series winners; he is also ranked third among those who have competed during the sport's modern era (1972–present).

[220] In the forty-eighth episode of 2016, Johnson joined Fallon and fellow championship 4 NASCAR drivers Carl Edwards, Joey Logano, and Kyle Busch in a game of Mario Kart.

[235] Johnson makes a cameo appearance as a pilot in the music video for The Avett Brothers' "Ain't No Man", the lead single from the album True Sadness (2016).