CHAD KNAUS
"It is a tricky deal, that is a tricky question. The deal is this - I love what I do for a living. I love this sport. This sport has taken me from a small town - Rockford Illinois - to living up near the lake in Mooresville North Carolina. I want to be in this sport for a long time, I want to see it continue to grow. The teams and the drivers that were together 14 years ago when I first started are nothing compared to what they are now. We have these huge shops to work from. I want to see it grow to the next level. I want to see it go to the Car of Tomorrow. I want to see it go to the flying cars of 2030 or what ever is to come. I want to be here a long time, that is what I want. So if I have gotten that little bit of a label, I need to try and change that to make sure that I am here and am successful for years to come."
Q.
HAVE YOU APOLOGIZED TO JIMMIE JOHNSON FOR FORCING TO HAVE TO ANSWER ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS BEFORE AND AFTER HIS VICTORY?
CHAD KNAUS
"Of course, I have apologized to Jimmie, Dude. We are like best friends. He is a great friend of mine. When all of this stuff first started going down, we talked about it and I said to him 'Look Dude, I am sorry. It is going to be a little bit crazy for a while.' The most important grief for qualifying and what happened for qualifying but there should be absolutely no grief for what happened with the
Daytona 500 victory. That car went through NASCAR inspection a multitude of times and it went through without a flaw.
“Those guys went out there with Darrian as the crew chief, Ron Mellick as the car chief and Jimmie Johnson as the driver and that crew to service that vehicle, and they won the Daytona 500, no questions asked. And then they went through technical inspection again. So, the apology was there, yes I apologized to him. But I don't want anybody to take that away from them. They did an incredible job, they deserve that victory and anyone who tries to say it isn't deserved is false."
Q.
WHAT ARE YOU ALLOWED TO DO AND WHAT ARE YOU NOT ALLOWED TO DO FOR THE NEXT MONTH?
CHAD KNAUS
"Well, I can come to work. They like that. Mr. H likes it when I'm working. So I'll come into Hendrick Motorsports every day and I'll do some work there. I'll have my butt sitting on the couch watching the race on TV. I'll have my laptop up listening to Trackpass and monitoring everything there. That's really it. I can't do any more than what your average fan can do."
Q
ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT WHAT THIS MIGHT DO TO YOUR REPUTATION?
CHAD KNAUS
"I don't know what's going to happen there. I've developed a reputation of being a person who goes out there and gets everything that he can. Good, bad, or indifferent, some people like it and some people don't. Hopefully it doesn't hurt my reputation. Hopefully if I get out of here and time is served and we go on to win this championship and everybody realizes it without any issues, then hopefully that image will change."
Q.
SINCE YOU'RE ON PROBATION UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR AND ALL THE OTHER CREW CHIEFS GOING WIDE OPEN, DO YOU HAVE TO BE LESS AGGRESSIVE ABOUT WORKING IN THE GRAY AREAS?
CHAD KNAUS
"I think that's obvious. As far as what everybody else does in the garage, well shoot, you guys (the media) know more about that than I do. We do everything we can to build the best race cars out there and be as innovative as we possibly can - not only from my standpoint, but as a group. That's why we work together so well and why we have such a cohesive group of guys. We're not going to go out there and pull punches. We're going to take the best product we can to the race track week in and week within the guidelines and specifications of NASCAR. That's what we're going to continue to do. That's the only way we're going to be able to be successful in motorsports and the only way we're going to be able to win this championship is to do our jobs to the best of our ability. So no, we can't change it."
Q.
THERE WAS TALK ABOUT YOU AND JIMMIE NOT WORKING TOGETHER ANYMORE. HOW DID THAT COME UP AND WHERE DOES IT STAND?
