Le Nascar enchaîné

An interview with:

JIMMIE JOHNSON

CHAD KNAUS

KERRY THARP:  Let's continue with our post race press conference.  We're joined by today's winning crew chief, Chad Knaus.

            Chad, congratulations on this win.  It's your 71st win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.  Gets you into the 2015 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.  It's got to be a very good feeling knowing that the 48 team certainly flexed its muscles and one more time showed its championship mettle.

            CHAD KNAUS:  Thank you.  It was really a lot of fun.  It didn't start off the way I wanted it to obviously with missing qualifying, not being able to go out there and see the potential that the 48 car had at that point.

            But, boy, drop the green flag...  It was actually a lot of fun knowing there was going to be a competition caution on lap 25, watching Jimmie and Jeff, Kevin just rally through the field in the first 25 laps.  I thought it was fantastic.  That was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed that.

            Then we were able to get up front and have some good runs today.  It was a lot of fun.  We enjoyed it.  Very proud of Jimmie and the efforts he did.  Really super proud of the new guys on the 48 team, especially everybody in the 48/88 shop.

            We went down to Daytona.  We qualified well.  Won both 150s, had a good shot of finishing 1-2 here.  Bodes for good things to come in the 48/88 group.

            KERRY THARP:  We'll go ahead with questions.

            Q.  Chad, your first go-around with the brand-new rules package.  How was it from an adjustability standpoint?

            CHAD KNAUS:  It wasn't a ton different than last year leading up to the event.  Atlanta is a bit of an anomaly with the tire wear, the way the strategy plays out.

            Most of the racetracks we go to, you don't have that much of a tire fall-off.  From our standpoint, it was a challenge.  Thursday practice session, Friday qualifying time, and yesterday throughout practice, we didn't have the car that we needed.  Fortunately enough, my engineers and myself, we really put our heads together last night, came up with some good ideas, and it worked out for us today.

            Q.  A lot of tech issues all weekend.  With your team specifically on Friday, what were the issues?  Do you expect that to continue into Vegas?

            CHAD KNAUS:  I hope it doesn't.  How is that?

            It was tough.  NASCAR right now, they've got a group of officials.  Once the inspection process begins, they kind of separate.  We have some in the Nationwide garage, some in the Cup garage.  Maybe they're a pinch understaffed in getting their rhythm figured out.  I think our wheel offset was off a little bit.  Maybe our skew was off a little bit with the alignment of the rear-end housing.

            When we rolled out of the garage for qualifying inspection, there was really only an hour left before qualifying was to begin.  The whole day was kind of slow.  I think once everybody gets familiar with what their jobs are, I think that will start to get faster, go faster, where we won't have this much of a backlog.

            It's difficult to do that.  NASCAR is trying to provide a level playing field for everybody, but it's something that needs to be addressed.

            Q.  There was some talk before the season started that this package would be better for Jimmie than last year's package.  You won Texas.  You finished fourth here last year.  Should we read much into today?

            CHAD KNAUS:  I hope so...