NASCAR CUP SERIESTEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPTOCTOBER 1, 2020
CHAD KNAUS, ONE OF THE MOST DECORATED CREW CHIEFS IN NASCAR HISTORY, MET WITH MEDIA VIA TELECONFERENCE TO DISCUSS THE RECENT ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS NEW LEADERSHIP ROLE AS VICE PRESIDENT OF COMPETITION FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS. Full Transcript:
HOW EMOTIONAL IS THIS DECISION AND DO YOU THINK YOU’LL BE EMOTIONAL AT ALL AT THE PHOENIX RACE?“Well, there’s a ton of emotions, obviously. I’ve been doing this a long time. So, it was a tough decision to try to figure out what I wanted to do, but it’s the right decision for everybody and all parties involved. I feel like at Hendrick Motorsports, we need to continue to grow the leadership. Jeff Andrews (Executive Vice President and General Manager) has done a great job. He’s got a lot on his plate and needs to be elevated, and that opens up a void. Myself, my family, it’s time for me to try to make a change to where I can spend more time with them and try to impact the company as a whole. So, sitting on top of the pit box for as long as I have and I’ve been traveling full-time since I was about 16 years old, so it’s time to kind of pull back just a little bit and not be on the road every single week and spend some time with my family.”
“Emotionally, in Phoenix, I’m sure it’s going to sink in. I’ve been taking it in race by race. Obviously, I’ve known about this for a while. We’ve been talking about it for a while. So, as I go to the race tracks, I’ve been soaking in the atmosphere from the drop of the green flag and looking up into the stands at the fans when they’re there. All of that has been pretty high priority, to just try and absorb as much as I possibly can these last few weeks.”
YOU ARE KNOWN FOR YOUR INTENSITY. DO YOU HAVE ANY SENSE OF WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE IN RELYING ON SO MANY PEOPLE FOR THE JOB TO GET DONE?“You can talk to the folks who have worked with me and that work with me currently. I give them a lot of freedom. I try to give them direction, advice and get conclusions to answers; and then I give them the freedom to carry out what it is they need to do. And I think it’s going to be a very similar format. Obviously, we’ve got so many strong folks here at Hendrick Motorsports. I don’t think I need to have an over-arching grasp on every single detail. My position is to try to come in and enhance the environment as a whole. If we can make a small incremental gain of just say eight percent, that’s going to be a huge impact on the performance of Hendrick Motorsports. And, that’s kind of the goal at this point – is to try to make a small incremental improvement for the 2021 season and then get prepared for 2022 and beyond, which is going to be a completely different ask for everybody involved; everybody on this call and everybody at the race track. So, that’s kind of my goal at this point.”
YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY GOING TO HELP WITH THE 2022 NEXT GEN CAR. CAN YOU DESCRIBE HOW MUCH OF A GAMECHANGER THIS CAR MIGHT BE? FROM BOTH THE ENGINEERING AND ECONOMIC STANDPOINTS? WE HAVE SEEN REPORTS THAT IT MIGHT ATTRACT SOME NEW OWNERSHIP TO THE SPORT“That’s a great question, and a very lengthy one. I don’t know if I can get through it all in a few minutes. But honestly, the car is fundamentally different. From a mechanical standpoint, the uprights, which we would call spindles, the independent rear suspension, the sequential shift, and the engine package is going to be different with the opportunity to evolve in the future. Aerodynamically, the car is just fundamentally different. It’s got complete full undertray so the ride proximity to the ground creates a lot of downforce, or loses a lot of downforce, depending on the pitch and heave of the car. There’s a lot to learn about this car, so it’s a fundamental change. Wheels and tires are larger. Sidewall stiffnesses are significantly different. It’s got the rack and pinion steering as opposed to the Saginaw style box that we currently use. Man, I could go on and on and on. It’s a completely different race car.
“Now, fast forward – from a financial standpoint, there’s a couple of ways to look at it. One, I think that you can probably run fewer cars, or have fewer cars in your inventory, which may help you from a financial standpoint. But ultimately, you’re going to reinvest the money in development and other ways to try to find improvement. Racing, unfortunately, is really about the same. How fast do you want to go, right? And, it’s going to cost money. That’s just the crux of the whole thing. The big difference is right now, if you have somebody that wants to come into our sport, they have to do and try to research what it’s going to cost for them to do business. Somebody’s got to build them a chassis, or they have to build their own chasses. Somebody is going to provide them an engine, or they have to build their own engines. Somebody’s got to manufacture the body components and figure out how to take it to the wind tunnel to do it. The one thing this new package is going to have is a lot of components that are store-bought; so, you can go through a menu and say okay, to do to x-number of races, I need to have x-number of components, and it’s going to cost what? And it’s very definitive from that standpoint. So, if you’re a business and you want to come in here and start racing, you can have a bottom line. But you kind of circle to understand exactly what your investment is going to be. And that’s not really possible right now. It’s very, very difficult for an independent to come into our sport and start a new team. So, there are some avenues there that I think are going to be very appealing to folks and hopefully to more manufacturers coming in in the future.”
WHAT HAS CHANGED MOST ABOUT YOU SINCE YOU STARTED BUILDING THE NO. 48 IN 2001? WHAT HAS MOST CHANGED ABOUT YOU? AND, WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT YOU TAUGHT JIMMIE JOHNSON AND WHAT HE TAUGHT YOU?‘Oh, gosh (laughs). What’s the most changed about me? I’ve probably been tempered quite a lot, obviously. I think any of you that have been around the sport a long time have seen my change from maybe being outward in a management style. When I started, and you know this, I was completely engrained in every facet of everything that we absolutely did. I took control of all that and took responsibility for everything that didn’t really relinquish a whole lot of that until I was extremely comfortable with folks. And that took quite a while. Now, I say I’d like to do things a little bit differently, like I mentioned prior. Giving the folks I feel are capable of making the right decisions and making the right choices and giving them the freedom to make those and come back to me with solutions. So, I think that’s definitely something I’ve learned from Mr. Hendrick over the years. He does a remarkable job of doing that. He lives and breathes by getting the right people together and putting them in a room and letting them hash it out and let them come up with a solution. That gives them the opportunity to have skin in the game and have some ownership of the solution. And, typically when that happens, they carry out a better product than I ever could. There are so many folks here that are so significantly smarter than I am. It’s foolish for me to think that I can help do a lot of the things that need to be done. So, I hope that answers that question. But that’s probably the biggest change.”
“The biggest thing Jimmie ever taught me. Oh, man. He definitely taught me to enjoy life a little bit, which is why we are where we are right now. I think it’s getting to the point where I need to do that. He taught me what it means to feel friendship and love and to care for somebody, which is something that I needed, for sure. And he definitely does that. Jimmie loves with his whole body, right? I think we all understand that, or at least, I do. So, he taught me that. He taught me what it’s like to want to have a family and to build a good family and how to be a good father. So, I’m trying to follow in some of those footsteps from him.”
“What I taught Jimmie was probably; well, we all know Jimmie, right? And he’s one of the most tenacious people out there. He creates a goal. He attacks it; and he eclipses so many milestones. Just go back and look at the stuff he’s done from championships and races to the Boston Marathon to his triathlons and all of those things. But I think if there’s one thing I probably taught him it’s that you need leadership. You need structure. You need guidance. And, you need somebody to keep the heat on you. As much as we complained and fought and all of that, I think it really boils down. Even Jimmie, as great as he is, he needed to have some of that, and he knew that. I’ll just leave it at that, I guess.”
ARE YOU STILL GOING TO HAVE A BIG BINDER FULL OF NOTES IN YOUR NEW JOB?“I will (laughs). But all those binders are all electronic now. But yeah, I’ll definitely keep a lot of notes. Honestly, I’m super excited about this. There are so many amazing folks at Hendrick Motorsports, as we all know. And I just want to get in and get engrained and see what everybody does and try to help. This company has changed a lot over the years from when I started here. We were a much, much smaller entity than where we are right now. We’ve got our fingers in a lot of places and I just want to get in there and see what everybody’s got going on and try to help Jeff Andrews as much as I possibly can. He’s a huge mentor of mine. I’m a big fan of his. I think he’s an amazing leader. And he’s got some qualities that I need to continue to evolve into my system. And I think he and I are going to be a great match. I’m looking forward to working with the crew chiefs and all the guys. It’s going to be a lot of fun.” GOING BACK TO THE EXCITEMENT LEVEL OF TAKING UP THE NEW POSITION – WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO IN YOUR NEW ROLE THAT YOU HAVEN’T EXPERIENCED AS A CREW CHIEF? WITH THE NEW SCHEDULE, WHAT RACE ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?“Obviously, the new role is going to be interesting. We’ve had a lot of folks in this role at different times throughout my career. Honestly, I’ve probably complained about all of them. So, my goal would be to not be the guy that’s being complained about as much. Hopefully, we can avoid that – that’ll be the first step. I want to make sure that I’m helping the teams, helping the folks, getting them what they need, getting them all the resources that they want, and continuing to establish the environment of passion. A passion for racing, a passion for the sport and performance. That’s what I really want to do. That’s what we’ve done with our race teams and I want to continue to carry that race team mentality to all parts of Hendrick Motorsports. If we can do that, get that small 3-to-5-to-8 percent gain that we’re looking for from an improvement standpoint.” “As far as the racetracks – I think we saw a lot of these coming, right? But I’m super excited to get to COTA – I think that’s going to be awesome. Indy is going to be a lot of fun. Bristol, I’m not a dirt racer, so we’ll leave that to the dirt guys. think the whole schedule and the evolution of what it is that we’re doing is really exciting. The new racecar that’s coming, the Next Gen car, is going to provide an even more realistic advancement to the road course racing, street racing and all of that. It’s really funny, when I started in the Cup Series, road racing was really kind of an after-thought. Nobody really liked it, the legacy and the purist were against road racing, they wanted the ovals, and those were the cornerstones of the sport. Honestly, the road racing has been some of our most exciting races over the past five years, probably, maybe six. I think the more we get of that, the cooler it’s going to be. The new car is going to provide a new and unique element of us being able to tune a little bit better for some of the road courses. Is that good or is that bad – we’ll just have to see.” YOU’RE GREAT ON TV – I’M SURE YOU HAD TO AT LEAST CONSIDER THE TV ROUTE AT SOME POINT. WHAT WAS THE DECISION LIKE? WAS THAT A CONSIDERATION?“I didn’t really dig into it super deep. I’ve got a love for Hendrick Motorsports. I do really enjoy doing television. I was actually in conversation via text and email just a couple days ago about continuing to do some stuff as well with doing this and I think that might still be an opportunity. Moving into full-time TV, it does have some appeal to it. But I think the way our sport is right now, quite honestly, I just don’t think there’s a spot that I would be wanting to do from a full-time standpoint. I think that helping Hendrick Motorsports, being a part of Hendrick Motorsports for the foreseeable future is really what I want to do. Continuing to play with the television stuff I think is fun. I think it’s another way for me to stay relevant with what’s going on in our industry. I’ve been doing TV since 2004 – maybe 2005 I started doing some TV shows with, back then, Speed. I want to stay in it – it gives me vision as to what our broadcast partners want and need, and I like helping to provide some of that.” CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH THE STEPS IN THIS DECISION? IS THIS AN IDEA THAT YOU HAD OR WAS THIS MR. HENDRICK COMING TO YOU? OBVIOUSLY, YOU SAID YOU’VE KNOWN ABOUT THIS FOR AWHILE, BUT CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH IT.“We started talking about this years ago. I’m going to go back two previous contracts with the No. 48 car, maybe. Not necessarily doing it at that point, but making sure we realized where I wanted to be in the future. So, Mr. Hendrick and I have been talking about this for quite some time. I’ve talked about it with Jimmie (Johnson) for quite some time. Jeff Gordon and I have talked about it for probably three years, maybe four, in that area. So, we’ve been talking about it for quite some time. Everything has to be right on timing and Mr. Hendrick is a master at putting things together at the right time. We feel like now is the time. We talked about doing it before I went over to the No. 24 car. Quite honestly, I really, really wanted to get a victory in that No. 24 car. It was something I dreamt about since I was a very young man. So, to be able to get that this year definitely helped tremendously. It’s all about timing and right now is just the right time. We’re transitioning into a new vehicle with the Next Gen car. I really want to try to help get that car the best that we possibly can get it so Hendrick Motorsports, our teams, our drivers can hit the ground running. Yeah, that’s kind of it. Everything is about timing and it seemed like the right time.” DO YOU EVER SEE YOURSELF MAYBE COMING BACK INTO THE CREW CHIEF ROLE AFTER GETTING SOME TIME AWAY AND RE-CHARGING THE BATTERIES?“That’s a great question. I have a huge passion for competition, I really do. My goal is that I’m filling that bucket with the four teams that we have at HMS and I don’t need to do that or don’t want to do that. But, you just never know. I’m not super old yet – I’m not quite 50. I’m getting there, I’m not quite 50 yet and there are some crew chiefs out there that are older than that. I think Jason Ratcliff, who’s early 50’s, and a couple other guys in their early 50’s. But, man, I don’t want to be that old crew chief walking around the garage, and his knees hurt, his back hurts and he’s just kind of making day-by-day. That’s not my goal in life. I have a lot to do that I want to do with my family. I’m really excited about my new little girl, as you guys know and have seen, and my son is awesome. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to watch these two grow up and be that positive influence on their lives. If there is a point in time where there’s a need for me to do something like that, a desire, or I don’t do a good job at this job and Mr. Hendrick says ‘well, you’re a better crew chief than you are a Vice President’ – I don’t know, you just never know what’s going to happen. So, never say never. But I would say if I do get back on the pit box again, there’s been an unfortunate circumstance of either me getting canned or somebody suspended – how’s that?” GOING BACK TO THE TOPIC OF THE NEXT GEN, IN JANUARY, YOU SAID THIS WAS GOING TO BE THE LARGEST FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT THIS SPORT HAS HAD – IT’S GOING TO BE A TALL TASK FOR TEAMS. HOW BENEFICIAL DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS TO HAVE SOMEONE LIKE YOU OR SOMEONE IN GENERAL DEDICATED TO FOCUSING ON THIS CAR NEXT YEAR? HOW EXCITED ARE YOU FOR A CHALLENGE LIKE THAT? “I’m super excited. Again, I’m not going to be completely overseeing it. My scope is much larger than that, but I’m going to be heavily involved with it. I feel like every major entity in NASCAR is probably doing something similar right now. They’ve got a lead that is doing that and will appoint a lead or two to try to get going on all that. I hope that I have a positive impact on that and a positive influence because it is a huge, huge undertaking. Through my career, I’ve seen big cars to smaller cars to the COT (Car of Tomorrow), and over my years, every old crew chief has always said ‘it’s going to ruin the sport’, ‘we’ll never make it’, ‘the sport’s doomed’ – things of that nature. But we continue to thrive and excel as an industry and the race teams do as well. So, I want to make sure that we’re doing things in the right direction, try to improve our product and get it out there so that Hendrick Motorsports can continue to be strong.” WITH NASCAR’S EMPHASIS ON ROAD COURSES AND SHORT TRACKS, HOW WILL THAT IMPACT TEAMS IN HOW THEY DO THINGS? AS THE SPORT EVOLVES IN THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF TRACKS, WILL THAT BE A FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE OR DOES THE CHANGE IN THE CAR MAKE THE TRACK CHANGE NOT AS BIG OF A DEAL FOR TEAMS?“The road course racing is unique – the venues are unique. That is a new element that is probably going to be a little bit more impactful than the short tracks. I’m just going to say that right now – if you’re going to go to say COTA for instance, that’s a completely new animal, even compared to any other road course that we go to. I think we’ve all heard talks of potential street courses, all these things. Once you start getting into some venues like that, that’s way out of the scope of what the majority of the folks in our industry are used to. The majority of the people in NASCAR right now have kind of gotten their roots from short track racing, different kinds of late models, different kinds of modifieds, and those natures and kind of navigate that just kind of distinctively. But as you start to get into some of those other tracks, it’s going to be uniquely different. The new car – we don’t know what it’s going to do. We don’t know about the durability. We crash-tested it one time, obviously. It didn’t do great – it crashed just like everything else. Stuff broke, fell apart, had to be replaced and all of that. But the durability standpoint on a short track when they start rubbing wheels, bouncing off the walls, hitting at Darlington, hitting at Bristol – we don’t know what it’s going to do just yet. But, again, I want to go back to the point I think as an entity, we’re kind of familiar with that. Once we start to get to some of these other venues, it’s going to be way different.” IT’S BEEN SINCE 2015 THAT CHEVROLET HAS WON THE MANUFACTURER TITLE. WITH YOUR NEW ROLE AND IT’S ALREADY ANNOUNCED THAT YOU GUYS AT HENDRICK AND RCR ARE PARTNERING UP WITH THE ENGINE DEPARTMENT – HOW VITAL IS IT TO GET THE ENTIRE CHEVROLET BRAND THAT MANUFACTURER’S TITLE BACK IN THE FUTURE? “Obviously, that’s a big gain for us. You try to get together and work with our key partners at GM. Obviously, putting Eric Warren in the position that he’s in is a huge asset. He’s a decorated member of the NASCAR community. He’s a very strong individual; his scope is massive on how he contributes. So, putting him at GM I think is fantastic. Getting the teams to work closer together I think is just paramount. We need to do that, especially moving into the 2021 season as we get through and we’re trying to develop this new car. We’ve been incrementally working this direction. We’ve shared some resources on development in the past. We’ve worked together collectively with the Camaro that we’re racing right now. We’re working together closely on the Camaro we’re going to be racing in the Next Gen. So, getting our resources spooled up and working together just makes fundamental sense. We’re going to be able to work together with RCR, CGR and GM and really get some nice stuff going in the right direction. We’re excited about that. The strength of our OEM is really critical to the performance of our teams in a lot of different ways. GM is a huge resource that, in the past, maybe we haven’t tapped into as much as what we need to. I think we’re going to be able to get involved, get our fingers in up there and really pull out some good from those guys up there in Michigan.” MY QUESTION IS ABOUT THE PERSONNEL AT HENDRICK – YOU’RE STEPPING OFF THE PIT BOX, JIMMIE JOHNSON IS LEAVING NEXT YEAR. WHEN YOU MENTIONED HAVING A BUNCH OF YOUNG DRIVERS IN THE ORGANIZATION, I’M WONDERING IF YOU SEE THIS AS A NEW ERA FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS?“Of course it is and you’d be foolish not to think that. Look at the age of our drivers, the age of our crew chiefs – look at all of that. It’s Cliff (Daniels), Greg (Ives), and Alan (Gustafson) – he’s a little bit older than those guys, but not a lot, and he’s got a lot of years ahead of him. If you look at Chase Elliott, he’s still in his mid-20’s and he’s got a long ways to go in his career. William Byron, obviously we know how young he is. I cannot wait to see how good of a race car driver William is in four years. I really think he’s going to be fantastic. Alex (Bowman) is super young, so we’ve got a lot of youth here that we can build upon and I think that’s exciting. I think it’s a great opportunity for me to ride on the coat tails of these guys as they’re going out there winning races and, hopefully, I can help a little bit.” YOU MENTIONED JEFF GORDON EARLIER AND FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS, WE’VE HEARD HE’S GOING TO TAKE A BIGGER ROLE AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS. HOW MUCH DOES YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JEFF PLAYED INTO YOUR DECISION TO HELP BUILD THE NUCLEOUS OF THE MANAGEMENT TEAM AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS?“Jeff (Gordon) has been impactful, he really has. He and I sat down, I guess the first time three or four years ago, and we sat down and had a conversation over a glass of wine, and talked and spit-balled a little bit. He was curious where my head was in the future and what I wanted to do. I have a ton of respect for Jeff. He brings a uniqueness to our company: he’s an extremely successful race car driver; very, very talented in the broadcast booth, so he understands that side of things; very, very good with the sponsors; and has a good unique vision on how things should go forward. So, I think he was a big part of me understanding what the role is going to be moving forward. I think he and Mr. Hendrick working together is great. We’ve got a couple of unique perspectives up there, so he’s a big part of what’s going on here and it’s a lot of fun working with Jeff. He’s been here late at night with Jeff Andrews and I, 7:00 or 8:00 at night, talking and hashing things out and discussing how we’re going to move forward. He’s been great.” THERE WAS NEWS THAT CAME OUT EARLIER TODAY WHERE HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS IS GOING TO BE TEAMING UP WITH RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING NEXT YEAR FOR THE CHEVROLET ENGINE PROGRAM. WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON THAT AND WERE YOU A PART OF ANY DISCUSSIONS THAT LED TO THAT NEWS COMING OUT?“I knew before you, how’s that (laughs). It’s something that we’ve talked about for a while. I wouldn’t say that was on my plate a whole lot – Jeff Andrews is really the guy that handles a lot of the engine side of things. So, he and the folks up there at RCR have had a lot of communication over the years. I think we’ve slowly begun to kind of migrate and merge closer together over the years. Obviously, CGR is a customer of ours from an engine standpoint, so getting those ties closer as an entity as I mentioned prior with the key partner of General Motors is really important. Honestly, it makes more sense from a GM standpoint to have a collective group doing research and development to get the car performance higher. Obviously, a good engine definitely helps. Those guys at RCR do a really good job. I’ve spent some time up there – I’ve been up there two or three times in the last six months or so. I’ve been very impressed with what they’ve got up there at RCR. Those guys do a really good job. They’ve got a lot of resources and they’re definitely going to have a positive impact on this engine program, for sure.” WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO MISS THE MOST NOT BEING WITH JUST ONE TEAM?“I was actually just talking to my team a little while ago. You have to realize I’ve been a part of a team, a race team, since I was very, very young. Race teams are a pretty tight nucleus of folks. You’ve got 20-25 guys and gals that you work really, really closely with. You’re intimate with their families, you know their emotions, you know their needs, their desires, how they impact the performance of the car. You can tell when somebody’s off just by looking at them. That’s definitely what I’m going to miss the most – is just that intimacy with a team, the intimacy with the specific car number. And I know that I’m still part of a huge team at Hendrick Motorsports, but man – that being ingrained, that quickness of a team to move and react – that’s going to be something that I’m really going to miss. But that’s OK – I’ll focus on that and develop a team that we want to try to grow here where HMS is operating as one big team. That’s going to be a big thing.” “And quite honestly, the competition side of things. When you’re on top of the pit box and you’re trying to make the decision if you’re going to make a green flag pitstop, if you’re going to pit early or if you’re going to run long, should you take two tire or four tires – that’s something that I’m definitely going to miss. That gut decision-making in the heat of the battle, that’s a tough one to give up, for sure.” YOU AND JIMMIE JOHNSON ARE BOTH SORT OF STEPPING AWAY FROM YOUR LONGTIME ROLES AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS THIS SEASON. FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE, WHAT DO YOU THINK HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS GOING FORWARD WILL MISS MOST ABOUT JIMMIE JOHNSON NOT BEING AROUND? “Obviously, we’re going to miss his talent. He’s a heck of a racecar driver – that’s an easy one. We’re going to miss his presence, just from a personality standpoint. Everybody loves Jimmie. He’s a great guy and he’s a fierce competitor – we’ll definitely miss that. And we’re going to miss his accomplishments. Inevitably, you guys know this, as he walks away, a part of that goes with him. From a company standpoint, we’re trying to fill that void with talented young drivers that we feel can carry the torch – much like Jeff Gordon, much like Jimmie Johnson did in the past. So, we’re going to have that void for a little bit, but I think Chase (Elliott) is doing a fantastic job. If you look at the performance of that No. 88 car and Alex Bowman, those guys are doing a really good job. William (Byron) is coming along super strong. He’s got a victory. If we’re not crashing, we’re running pretty well. So, I think we’ll fill that cavity pretty quickly, I hope. But, just his presence. When Jimmie walks in, people just take notice. That’s Jimmie, Jimmie’s here – everyone wants to talk to him, they want to high-five him, give him so me love and he wants to give that. So, we’re going to miss that. Hopefully, he’s gone but not gone for good – he’s still coming around, checking us out a little bit.” “And Jimmie said that I could go to an IndyCar race with him next year, so I’m going to try to do that.”
YOU HAVE BASICALLY GROWN-UP AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS. NOW YOU’RE AT THE EXECUTIVE LEVEL. HOW WILL YOUR EXTENSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS BENEFIT YOU IN THIS NEW POSITION?“When I put on my scout sash with all my badges that I’ve been able to put on there, that’s probably the thing that I’m most proud of that I’ve done all of those jobs. When I showed up here, I was literally sweeping the floor in the body shop. To be able to know that I’ve done so many things here at Hendrick Motorsports, (like) putting the bodies on the cars, being a mechanic, to setting the cars up to building shocks, to being a tire changer and part of the pit crew. And driving from Charlotte to Michigan to pick the guys up at the airport because our plane wasn’t big enough to take all of us back then. Some of us had to drive and we couldn’t afford rental cars. So, all of those things. It’s funny. The majority of the folks that work here now only know me as a crew chief because I’ve been a crew chief for so long. They don’t even identify with the fact that I was this fella that washed Ray Evernham’s car in the driveway every week so he had a clean car, right? So, I really like that. I like that I’ve been able to earn my stripes and scout badges the way that you’re supposed to do it.
“And I hope that people respect that and realize, quite honestly, that they could do the exact same thing. The most senior people in our company right now have been here for a very long time and have grown up in this environment of what is Hendrick Motorsports; which started as a very small entity to a huge campus that we’re all super proud of, right? So, talk about Greg Ives who came down from Michigan. He drove down to Daytona to have an interview with Brian Whitesell from the UP and then he came in and we put him in our tear-down department. Here’s a mechanical engineer with a degree and he’s out there washing cars and working his way up through the system. Cliff Daniels came in early. Alan Gustafson worked for Gary DeHart in his fab shop before he came over here. If you think like of the way that we’ve structured our company to grow folks into senior positions, it’s something I’m super proud of.”
YOU LEARNED FROM RAY EVERNHAM AND YOUR RECORD IS VERY IMPRESSIVE. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU STACK-UP AMONG THE GREATEST CREW CHIEFS IN THE SPORT?“I don’t know.”
I KNEW YOU WOULDN’T ANSWER“That’s for you folks to decide. I don’t know. I’ve been very fortunate to work with amazing race car drivers and winning a bunch of races with Jimmie Johnson and having a lot of success with William Byron. Being on the outskirts of working with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne and all these other drivers who have been through here. I don’t know where I stack-up. I know that I’ve been traveling a long time. I know that I’ve done this for a long time. Dale Inman is still the guy. Leonard Wood is still the guy. Ray Evernham is still the guy. Like I called Ray the other day just to talk about this and he screamed me out. But, I have a lot of respect for the senior guys in this industry because they’ve definitely carried the torch and set the stage for guys like myself to come in and have a successful career; because there was a time that crew chiefs didn’t have that good of a lifestyle, you know? We were constantly filthy. And I was that guy, right? We were constantly filthy and never slept and slept at the shop. I can remember working in Alabama with Philipe Lopez and Stanley Smith and I was literally sleeping on this steel table in the middle of the garage because I was too tired to drive home to get up to come to work the next day because we were there so late. So, the sport has changed significantly. I’m just proud to be a part of it. I’m very blessed to be where I’m at and to have this opportunity to come here and help at Hendrick Motorsports at the level my predecessors did.”
After a strong second-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Matt DiBenedetto and the No. 21 Menards/Tuscany Faucets team head to Talladega Superspeedway hoping to improve their finish by one position. That would deliver DiBenedetto his first Cup victory and his Wood Brothers team its 100th.
Jeg Coughlin Jr.After leading the championship points for three of the first four races of the season on the strength of two victories and a runner-up result in his 
Troy Coughlin Jr.“Five races into my Pro Stock career and I’m definitely still learning how to drive these cars,” Troy Jr. said. “I’m also learning how to bounce back from mistakes and being with the best team in the sport has made a huge difference. These Elite guys are all about winning championships and races and it pushes me to stay on my toes and get everything right when I’m in the car. “This is an extremely competitive class and with the shortened weekends only allowing for two qualifying sessions instead of four, there just isn’t any margin for error. You have to make great runs right out of the trailer. Fortunately, having Uncle Jeg and (teammate and reigning champion) Erica Enders right there in the pits with me gives me a lot of experience to pull from. I want to keep progressing every pass.” Just one week removed from a big Division 3 Top Dragster victory at World Wide Technology Raceway, Mike Coughlin also has high hopes for the weekend. With D3’s schedule now in the books, Mike and crewmen Greg Cody, Tony Collier and Ryan Micke will be looking to improve on their current national ranking of third place. “We’ve got two national events left to claim so between this weekend in St. Louis and two weeks from now in Dallas, we need to be at our best,” Mike said. “We’re coming out of a triple-header weekend in St. Louis and we did get one win out of the three so we feel really good about our chances. It’s supposed to be nice and cool again so we’ll stick with this flawless tune-up the guys have put together and go have some fun. “We run as many races as we can, and some are on the divisional level and some are national level, but I look at them the same. The main difference is the national events give me the chance to cheer on Jeg and Troy Jr., and this year we haven’t had as many chances to do that as usual, so I’m extra excited.”
Matt DiBenedetto and the No. 21 Menards/Duracell team put the disappointment of dropping out of the playoffs behind them by scoring a strong second-place finish in Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Eddie Wood said he was glad to see DiBenedetto and the team score a strong finish, both for the team’s sponsors and for Marnie Howiler, whose name was above the driver’s door as part of the Nominate a Cancer Hero program spearheaded by the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation.