The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson often remarks that all the credit for his successful auto-racing career goes to his parents. They let him play with motorcycles when he was just four.
Despite being born to working-class parents, they always bought him the gears necessary for races and never let him feel low.
With their support and determination, Jimmie won his first-ever championship in 1982 when he was seven.
Following their older brother, the two younger sons of Gary and Catherine, Jarit and Jessie, also became racing car drivers.
In his late forties, Jimmie is still competing in car races. He currently races part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No.84 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for the Legacy Motor Club racing team.
Jimmie won his first-ever NASCAR Cup Series title in 2006 when he was thirty-one. Following that win, he lifted the tournament consecutively five times until 2010.
He later won two more, tying the record with the legendary former racing car drivers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.
Jimmie Johnson’s Parents & Family
Jimmie Kenneth Johnson, better known as Jimmie Johnson, was born on September 17, 1975, in El Cajon, California. He grew up with his younger siblings, Jarit and Jessie.
According to sources, his dad, Gary Ernest Johnson, was a heavy equipment operator. He started racing motorcars at age eight but did not participate in any races after graduating from Monte Vista High School.
After Jimmie’s success, Gary worked on his son’s pit crew for years and ran a motorcycle shop in their hometown. Similarly, his mom, Catherine Ellen Dunnill, was a school bus driver.
Knowing his parent’s background, it is unsurprising that young Jimmie and his brothers were interested in motorcars. Despite their financial difficulties, his parents gifted motorcycle on Jimmie’s fourth birthday.
On the other hand, they wanted to provide quality education and sent their kids to Granite Hills High School, a distinguished school in California. Knowing his parents’ hardships, Jimmie did well in school but aimed to be a professional race car driver.
Soon after graduation, he began racing in the off-road series and eventually switched to the NASCAR Xfinity Series (then Busch Series) in 2000.
Now that Jimmie is one of the all-time greats, Jimmie’s dad remarks that he was not born with a silver spoon and he has done so much to achieve what he has today. Gary and his wife still come to racing tracks to watch their son participate.
Jimmie’s dad, Gary, was the grand marshal at the 2020 Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500, his last race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Jimmie Is Married To Chandra Janway
The auto car driver has been married to his girlfriend Chandra Janway for nearly two decades. The couple tied the knot in December 2004 after dating each other for two years.
They reportedly first met through their mutual contact, Jeff Gordan, the four-time NASCAR champion.
Janway was born to her parents, Jack and Terry, on July 16, 1978, in Oklahoma, United States.
After graduating high school, she enrolled at the University of Oklahoma in 1996. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Communications.
However, she had been involved in modeling since college and continued doing projects even after some years of marriage.
In 2007, she starred in Devil’s Canyon, a remake of the 1953 American western movie of the same name.
In addition, she had some years of a modeling career in association with Wilhelmina Models, a company based in New York.
After marriage, Jimmie has two kids together with his wife. They reside with their daughters, Lydia and Genevieve, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Chandra’s parents recently died in a murder-suicide incident in Muskogee, Oklahoma. As per the police, the perpetrator was Chandra’s mom, Terry, who first shot her husband and her eleven-year-old grandson and eventually killed herself.
