First of all, I'm a fan of Chad Knaus. When Dale Jr. moved to Hendrick Motorsports I was a happy camper! Junior and Chad racing under the same owner. (And yeah, Chad's driver isn't a slouch in the driving department either.)
We all know Chad is a fan of the gray area. After all, he did end up taking a few NASCAR enforced vacations in the last couple of years. But then his team also won back-to-back championships.
Call him a cheater, call him an innovator, call him what you want—the man is a genius! He can take a junk car and make it good—partly due to his genius self, and partly due to his very good driver. Chad is of course the man that had to have NASCAR institute a new rule for shocks a few years ago.
Here are some things you may or may not know about Chad "the man" Knaus.
He's a total work-aholic! In an article on USAtoday.com Chad talks about going to Aspen to ski shortly after winning the first Nextel Cup Championship in 2007. His long-time girlfriend says he was on the phone at 4:00 AM talking to the guys on the crew.
Rick Hendrick was also quoted as saying in the article, "He's never going to take a week off. He'd go crazy..."
When he was on suspension he spent every waking hour in the shop working on the car. Even when he took a trip while serving his six-week suspension he still worked on notes for the car from the Bahamas.
He got his first taste of being a crew chief when he was 14! He was the crew chief for his father, racer John Knaus. The two of them won the Rockford Speedway Championship series. They also finished second in the Winston Racing Series and won the Great Northern Series Championship. They won seven track championships together.
(I don't know about you, but when I was 14, I was busy drooling over Joey Lawrence and Jonathan Brandis and trying to be young and dumb!
In 1991 he packed his bags and headed south to North Carolina to pursue a job in NASCAR. He got a job with Stanley Smith's stock car team. Then in 1993 he began working for Hendrick Motorsports, working for the 24 team under crew chief Ray Evernham.
He went from general fabricator to managing the entire body construction of the 24 team. He also served as a tire changer on the No. 24 team, and they won the championships in 1995 and 1997.
After the 1997 championship season he left HMS and went to work at DEI. He was the car chief for the one car and worked with Steve Park and later DW (who drove the car after Park was injured and couldn't drive).
In 1998 he went to Tyler Jet Motorsports, but that was nothing. In 1999 Chad's buddy Ray Evernham called him up and invited him to come work for him and be in charge of the Dodge Development team. Chad, being the genius that he is, quickly agreed to this.
He tested with the team and Melling Racing with Stacy Compton. The two of them did two years of test sessions, and in 2001 Chad got his chance to be a Winston (now Sprint Cup) Crew Chief. He sat on Compton's pit box calling the shots.
2 comments Last one added 11 months ago — Leave a Comment
Patti Rodisch 11 months ago
i read somewhere the HMS has been working on there engine program and the second half should be much better than the first. Hopefully thats true. Jimmy and Chad just work well together becuase like zippy and Smoke the other one allows the driver(in Smokes case) and Crew Chief( in JJ case) to bounce things off each other.
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L.J. Burgess 11 months ago
There is no better Chief/Driver duo. If the Buschster isn't looking over his shoulder he's truly a madman.
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