The Pit Crew Challenge continues to grow in popularity among the fans. Great event. How important is the event to your crew and really all the over-the-wall guys who are sort of the unsung heroes in NASCAR?
CHAD KNAUS: Well, you know, first off thanks for having me today. But I think it’s a big deal, it really is. I think the emphasis that these people put on the individual position competition is pretty high. Our guys have been working on it. They keep it in the backs of their minds throughout the whole year long, trying to think of how they improve and do a better job in that competition, whether it be from the push standpoint, where the team goes down to push the car, and how they fall in, get into position to get the car rolling as fast as possible, to when they’re fuelling the cars or changing the tires in the individual competition. It’s in the backs of their minds.
They’ll be practicing a week mid summer for the pit crew competition. They’re always aware of it and I think it’s a great thing. I was real fortunate back in the mid ‘90s to be able to be a part of the competition that we had at Rockingham. It was a cool thing to do then, but it was just kind of like a round-robin type competition where you were eliminated. If you didn’t have the fastest pit stop, you were pretty much out.
The thing that this competition allows, thankfully from Sprint NASCAR putting it on, it focuses on the individual instead of the whole team. That narrows it down and puts the pressure on the guy. I think every guy that’s on a pit crew to some degree wants to be the guy. He’s always the guy that said, Throw me the ball, let me make it happen and make myself responsible for what’s going to happen. If he can make it happen, then good for him. That’s kind of what this is about and it’s good for them because it’s easy for everybody to say we’ve won the race because of Jimmie Johnson, Rick Hendrick or myself. But the fact of the matter is it takes every single one of us to do our jobs to the best of our ability in order to pull it off. They don’t always get the accolades they truly deserve.
Q. How difficult is it on a crew chief to go into a race like the All-Star Race knowing it’s a piece you massaged on, worked and worked on, there’s a good chance it will wind up in a heap of junk by the time the night is over?
CHAD KNAUS: Oh, boy. You know, that’s fine ‘cause we’ve got that chance every time we go on the racetrack, whether it’s practice, qualifying or a race, which we showed last week at Darlington. That’s a natural risk that comes along with our sport. It’s just part of it.
Ultimately, if you really think about it, to say that you’re building a sacrificial lamb to go into the All-Star Race is probably even less true than you would say if you’re going to Talladega, because at Talladega you have a better risk of wrecking than what you do at a place like Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
I’m not really that concerned about that. What we’re concerned about is going out there and representing Lowe’s and trying to win this All-Star Race, because that’s a race that we’ve been fortunate enough to win once while it was the Winston and once while it was the All-Star event. We would love to do it again and bring the trophy back here to Hendrick Motorsports.
Q. You and your team have won three straight Sprint Cup championships. Has team chemistry played a role in that success?
CHAD KNAUS: Well, of course. I think that if you look at the cohesiveness of our team, it’s at an all-time high. We’ve been able to work together. We’ve made changes to our group throughout the years, which you have to do. People change. People want to get married, have kids, come off the road, whatever the situation may be. So we’ve made changes. But we’ve been able to keep guys on our team for a long period of time.
I think the understanding and the communication level between everybody on our team, not just Jimmie and myself, stays at an all-time high by keeping people for long periods of time. Most of guys on our team are three-to-four to even some of them seven- or eight-year veterans of the Lowe’s team. That’s a good thing.
It’s easy to work alongside somebody after you’ve done it for such a long time, work alongside them, know what it is they’re going to do, what their next step is. I think if you look at any good sports team, that’s typically what happens.
Q. I’d like to ask you about next week’s Coke 600. Watching you on the pit box, it’s pretty amazing to see how you coach the team throughout that race, not only the crew members and everybody behind the wall, but also your driver Jimmie Johnson. How do you go into that race and coach them to manage the entire 600 miles of that race?
CHAD KNAUS: Well, you know, that’s tough. It is tough. It’s a long, long race. Obviously starting in the evening hours, going to twilight and into the nighttime, it’s difficult to keep everybody focused and ready to go for that period of time.
But the one thing that we’re real fortunate about is our team relies on one another. As Jimmie gets into a position, losing a little bit of momentum, I think I do a good job of picking him back up, getting him focused. If I have an issue like that to where I’m starting to get drawn out or tired, the guys and Jimmie do a good job of picking me back up. I do the same for the pit crew. We work together to support one another as a group. That way the responsibility isn’t like on one individual person. We definitely spread that about, not by design but by everybody wanting to work together and trying to achieve the same goal.
Q. It seems like you, more than any other crew chief, is willing to take a lot more risks on pit road trying to work on the car at any time during the race. Do you think you’d be able to do that with any other driver or does that take the chemistry and confidence you and Jimmie have to take those risks during the race?
CHAD KNAUS: I think obviously having a driver of the caliber of Jimmie definitely plays into our hands, you know, being able to do stuff like that, knowing he’s not going to go out there and typically wreck a racecar.
I think it’s a mindset that you have to establish going into a race or into a season knowing that if we don’t have the best racecar, we’ve got to work on it early. That way at the end of the race we can put ourselves in position to get a top five, top 10 or potentially even win a race. We really focus hard on trying to get our car right early and then working on getting the track position and where we need to be at the end of the race to go for the good finish.
I think a lot of teams could probably do that. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s got something to do with the driver and the pit crew, them not being able to follow through with that.
Q. Who do you consider the best crew chiefs in the business right now, taking into account everything from getting a car ready to the quality with which they strategize a race?
CHAD KNAUS: The ones in the garage right now?
Q. Yes, current guys.
CHAD KNAUS: I would say Alan Gustafson is one of the best out there. I think Steve Letarte does a good job. I think if you look at Greg Zipadelli, he does a very good job. I think one of the guys that I’ve enjoyed watching over the years grow would be Shiplett from the 43 car. I think he does a very good job. And I think, honestly, if you look at the performance of what this team does with the 78 car, with their limited schedule, I think Jay Guy does a very good job. From where they’re based, what they have to try to overcome, I think they do a fantastic job. Then you have your normal guys, Zipadelli, Steve Addington, guys like that that are obviously superstars in their own right and just fantastic crew chiefs.
I think it’s difficult to say who’s the best until you look at each individual situation and what they’re working with, and then you can probably break that down yourself.
Q. How many different components go into the job from amateur psychologist with the driver to working on the car? Must be millions of facets to it.
CHAD KNAUS: Yeah, there are. I think a manager, coach, psychologist, like you said, is probably some of the biggest things that you have to learn to deal with, especially in today’s day and age, with the amount of people we have that put these teams through the paces, make them all work.
The larger we get, the less that you have to fall back on your mechanical aptitude and you can work more so with your mind than you do with your hands. I do miss that. I’m not going to lie to you. I miss working on the racecars as much as what I used to. Quite frankly, it’s not the wise way for us to be as successful as we need to be.
Q. How much are y’all interacting with the crew chiefs and technical types over at Stewart-Haas Racing this year?
CHAD KNAUS: Well, I mean, just as much as we ever have. We’ve always been really close with those guys. Bootie Barker, obviously who was over there last year, he and I have a good relationship, would communicate quite often. But Darian Grubb obviously going over there straight from Hendrick Motorsports has opened up that line of communication a little bit more maybe than what we did last year.
As far as what they’ve got for tools and how the information flow goes back and forth is no different than what we’ve had in the past. Quite honestly it’s quite a lot. They get just about everything that we’ve got.
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