a noose was in his garage; before the race, Johnson texted his peers that he intended to stand with Wallace during the national anthem, with the drivers also pushing his car to the front of pit road. In the race, Johnson was on the verge of taking the lead with three laps remaining before being spun by Harvick. On July 3, 2020, two days before the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, Johnson announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus, forcing him to miss the race and Justin Allgaier to take over the No. 48. This snapped a 663-race streak in which Johnson started a Cup event. Johnson was cleared to return to racing on July 8, 2020, after testing negative twice, and he received a waiver that allowed him to remain playoff eligible should he qualify. His first race back was the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky, a track at which he had never won before. With 23 laps to go, he was coming off of the fastest three laps of the race and a strong run from ninth to third before taking the inside on a restart and being nipped by Brad Keselowski in the left rear, spinning out. He finished the race in 18th. The next week at Texas, Johnson was again one of the fastest cars, putting up a Top 10 lap before getting loose and hitting the wall in stage 2. On top of that, his crew committed a penalty for too many crew members over the wall. He finished 26th and only two points above the playoff cutoff in the standings. Johnson's misfortunes continued at Kansas when he was collected in a third-stage crash while running in the top ten, followed by a first-stage spin at New Hampshire while fighting for a top-five spot. Prior to the Go Bowling 235 at the Daytona road course, the No. 48 team changed the Ally paint scheme from black to white, which Johnson branded as a "rAlly" livery in an effort to "reset" his luck. Johnson, who had experience at the road course via the 24 Hours of Daytona, finished fourth in a run that he described as "what we needed". The final three races of the regular season saw Johnson battling with Byron and Matt DiBenedetto for the final playoff spots. Entering the doubleheader at Johnson's strongest track Dover, Johnson was 25 points behind his teammate. He