Johnson made his announcement at ADWEEK's Brandweek conference.

With 83 wins under his belt and a bit of gray in his whiskers, Jimmie Johnson didn't surprise many fans when he announced his retirement from stock car racing in 2019.

"This sport has been good to me," Johnson said at the time. "I'm looking forward to next season and celebrating what will be my last year as a full-time NASCAR Cup driver."

But the legendary driver -- the only one in NASCAR history to win five consecutive titles -- apparently turned off his engine prematurely. NASCAR recently announced it'll be holding its first coastal race weekend at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego in June 2026, and today Johnson announced that he'll be there, too -- behind the wheel.

"I'll be competing in that event," Johnson told the audience at Brandweek, ADWEEK's annual meeting of marketing minds, this year held in Atlanta. "It's a massive opportunity."

Johnson's revelation came during an on-stage discussion on the evolution of the NASCAR brand along with the racing organization's executive vice president and chief brand officer Tim Clark.

The "opportunity" referenced by the wisened racer can be understood several ways.

Since January, Johnson has been majority owner of Legacy Motor Club, having first taken a stake in 2022, so his return to driving will no doubt constitute a nifty bit of marketing for his racing team, which is also financed in part by hedge fund Knighthead Capital Management.

The opportunity for Johnson personally appears obvious: the return to the enjoyment of driving his Toyota Camry XSE (No. 84) at up to 200 mph through a 3.4-mile street course with 16 turns. Legacy Motor Club will be bringing all three of its cars to the event, and Johnson -- who was born in nearby El Cajon -- was clearly enthused over getting a chance to be part of a homecoming race, and competing alongside rival superstar drivers like Shane van Gisbergen.

"The track really changes during the course of the weekend," Johnson said, " and [an] understanding of the grip level, how to adjust the car, how to lead his team, will give them a leg up."

But the biggest opportunity in the offing may be for the NASCAR brand itself, which has been actively bringing races to different parts of the country in an effort to expand its audience, whose median age is 58, according to Nielsen data.

If NASCAR -- which turned 77 this year -- is to succeed in luring a younger and more diverse fan base, Clark said, "we have to go to them. We've talked about that figuratively for years, if not decades, and just in the past few years we started doing that more literally. We held a race in the LA Coliseum. We held a race in downtown Chicago, around Grant Park."

NASCAR San Diego Weekend, Clark continued, is "the next iteration of meeting fans, where we are going to them as opposed to always having them come to us."