Nascar Champ Jimmie Johnson Launches Charlie Meatball Productions

Nascar champion Jimmie Johnson is getting ready to take part in a different sort of race.

The veteran driver, a seven-time Nascar Cup Series champion, has started a new production company. He  is eager to land his first project, a six-episode series called “One Final Time” that examines his final Nascar season, with a media partner.

Octagon, the Interpublic Group sports marketing agency, is working with Johnson and his Charlie Meatball Productions — the unit is named for his dog– to sell the series.

“In the coming years, I really want to do passion projects and get deeper into this space and see things through,” says Johnson, in an interview. The production company’s scope will not be limited to stories about racing, he says.

“We have plenty of irons in the fire,” Johnson says, noting that he doesn’t feel pressure to do a predetermined number of projects in a particular time span. “I’m looking for that passion in the partners we bring in, from the person telling the story to the people who are surrounded by it.”

“One Final Time” was shot during Johnson’s’ final Nascar season, from the time he announced retirement through coronavirus testing to his transition to a new race team with IndyCar, and shows him working to keep racing while also staying involved with his family.

Due to the pandemic, Jimmie had to shoot a lot of the footage himself, driving to and from races with a GoPro camera mounted in his truck. The series also  captures Johnson testing positive for coronavirus and standing with driver Bubba Wallace and decrying racial injustice.

The docuseries is co-produced with DLP Media. Nascar provided 4K footage for the series.