Jimmie Johnson really, really wants you to know he is not retiring

Despite losing his longtime sponsor Lowe’s at the end of the current season, Jimmie Johnson wants us all to know that we shouldn’t read anything into that regarding the end of his own illustrious career.

Conventional wisdom and the rumor mill are often arch-enemies. It isn’t often then they align, but in the case of Jimmie Johnson, they found themselves coming together just this week.

There had been whispers that despite signing a three-year contract extension that runs through 2020, Johnson might consider hanging up his firesuit at the end of the 2018 NASCAR season instead — particularly after getting off to a miserable start. That theory-crafting only intensified when Lowe’s announced that after supporting Johnson for his entire NASCAR Cup Series career, it was leaving the sport after this year.

All of a sudden, a whole bunch of people started reading something into the timing, believing that it made sense for Johnson and Lowe’s to ride into the sunset together. There’s just one problem with that scenario: Johnson says he has no intention of calling it quits.

The 42-year-old “grandpa” of the Hendrick Motorsports team talked to the media this week at Auto Club Speedway and made it clear (via NASCAR.com) he has plenty of motivation to stick around, still hoping to chase down that eighth Cup Series title.

"I guess maybe it’s the eternal optimist that I am. I have more to do and I enjoy the process and Hendrick is home and retirement hasn’t been on my mind. I want to win. I want to win an eighth championship. … I’m the elder statesman in a company with three young guys. If I was to have this be the end, put Hendrick Motorsports in a very awkward position and I don’t know. There are just a lot of different ways I could look at it and say that it’s the absolute wrong time.But I guess at the end of the day it’s really my desire to compete and to compete at a high level. I’m not done yet."

Could it be a “methinks he doth protest too much” situation? Maybe, but Johnson has always been a pretty straight shooter. It’s hard to imagine he’d be this adamant about seeing out his contract and then changing course, barring injury or some other unforeseen personal circumstance.

Performance that doesn’t live up to his championship standards could fall into that category, but it’s easy to forget that the 48 team won three races in the first half of last season. They are undoubtedly struggling at the moment — as is Hendrick Motorsports as a whole, really — but it hasn’t been a long enough slump to make a competitor like Johnson feel like he doesn’t have it any more.

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If Johnson was even mulling over retirement, he’d figure out a way to be diplomatic about his future plans. His insistence means it’s impossible to not take him at his word. As bizarre as it’s going to be to see Johnson racing with a different company on the hood of his No, 48 Chevrolet in 2019, we all need to prepare for it, because it’s almost a lock that it’s going to happen.