Chad Knaus: In his own words

It wasn't easy pinning Chad Knaus down for an interview. As the Hendrick Motorsports crew chief closes in on a record fourth consecutive championship with Jimmie Johnson, he's been a little leery of many requests. Strange, considering his regular appearances on Speed Channel programs have him rather used to exposure, right?

So the pitch had to be something that piqued his interest, and a good, old-fashioned Q&A did the trick. Simply asking Knaus questions about his background, his likes, interests, dreams and that label he's earned as, ahem, a "cheater" gave him the chance to give his answers and have them printed exactly as he said them.

What you'll find below is an unedited transcript of Knaus speaking freely. There was no place for editorial or opinion, and no time for him to craft carefully thought out answers. It was an on-the-spot, 30-minute conversation that actually took more than a day to complete.

My first call was answered, "I can't talk right now, I'm in a meeting," followed by a sharp click.

That's right, he hung up on me.

He did call back several hours later, stuck in traffic and running late for a team function with Johnson and the rest of the No. 48 crew.

We agreed to talk the next day.

"I'm sleeping in tomorrow," he cautioned. "Don't call me before 8."

That crazy Knaus. Sleeping all the way to 8 a.m.

But that's how he's wired, and that's how he's risen from a kid in Rockford, Ill., who got his start in racing by following his father John around local Midwest tracks. He was 14 when he won his first championship as a crew chief, for his father's Rockford Speedway championship.

He relocated to North Carolina after his high school graduation and slowly began the long road to present day.

Now 38 years old and a full-time crew chief since 2001, he'll leave the sport someday as the most successful crew chief in the business. With it has come sacrifices – he's single and childless because the commitment to his job has overshadowed most of his personal relationships, and he's postponed many of his hopes and dreams.

The tradeoff is his success, which Knaus is pretty damn proud of.

Now, the Q&A:

Chad Knaus: I am going to work while we talk, is that OK?

Jenna Fryer: I guess, what are you working on? I thought you go to Texas today?

CK:: Working on Texas, reviewing the stuff I need to do. Going over notes. I don't think you are ever done. It's just time to go race.

JF:: Why are you in the office? Don't you have the day off before you leave for Texas?

CK:: Well, I slept until 7. I got up and went to Starbucks and got a coffee. And now I am here. Today is my day off. I took a couple hours in the morning. I didn't shave today. I am wearing jeans. So, I am stepping out a lot.

JF:: So, when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

CK:: How little?

JF:: You tell me.

CK:: I don't really remember a lot from my childhood. I wanted to work on cars; I wanted to race cars; I wanted to do stuff with cars. I think every kid wants to be a fireman or a cowboy, at some time in life, but my first true memory is of wanting to work with cars.

JF:: Who was your favorite racer?

CK:: When I was young, real young, I really liked Larry Detjens. He was No. 25 and my father used to race against him in the Midwest and I liked him. I thought he was cool. He had a cool looking car. It was always a little bit different. The way he had it painted, if you take a 2 and mirror it, if done properly, it looks like 5. I thought that looked cool.

JF:: Did you ever drive?

CK:: When I was younger I drove a little bit.

JF:: Let me guess, you were no good?

CK:: I wrecked a lot for sure. I did the majority of my stuff later on in life with motorcycles, but never really raced a whole lot. I really enjoyed working on the cars. My father drove, and it was more about him driving.

JF:: What was it like crew chiefing your father?

CK:: It was OK. It was difficult from time to time. We had more of a working relationship than anything else. He was the driver and I was the mechanic and that was our time together.

JF:: You guys won a championship together when you were like 14. No offense, but how is a 14-year-old qualified to be a championship-winning crew chief?

CK:: Back then it was different. He was the driver, but it wasn't how it is now. My father had a huge impact of what we did on the race car. He called the shots. My dad, myself, a couple of other guys. My dad was the leader of the deal.

JF:: Who was the boss?

CK:: Ultimately, he was the boss. But I think I was already at that point coming up with ways to make the car go faster. I think the thing that was neat at my point in my life was I was exploring ways to make cars go faster.

JF:: When did you go to school between all this racing?

CK:: I didn't go to college. That's the biggest regret in life I have, is that I didn't go to college. There were no scholarships or grants, my grades weren't good enough to get me to school with any funding. So I worked on race cars. It was different back then. In the summertime, when we raced, it was April until September or October. That's it. The overlap of school was only a couple of months.

JF:: What's a typical day like for you, during the week?

CK:: Currently? Alarm goes off at 5:25 and I get up and jump in the shower, and I get ready and drive to work and am at work at 7 for a meeting with department heads. Then I go through the things I am responsible for, personnel issues, scheduling of cars, watching the pit crew, all those things. Then hopefully between 5 and 6 I make my way down to the gym and then head home.

JF:: So what time are you leaving the office each day?:

CK:: Sometimes around 5, but sometimes it is not until 8 or 9.

JF:: Are you working out every day?

CK:: I try to, at least four days a week.

JF:: How often do you take a day off?

CK:: I don't. I don't.

JF:: Come on.

CK:: I don't really know. I don't have a set day off. If we have a weekend we are not racing, I try to take an extended weekend, maybe take Friday and Monday off, to try to detach myself from what's going on. And during the offseason, I take a week or a week and half straight and try to go somewhere. Other than that, I just work.

JF:: So what do you like to do for fun?

CK:: Race.

JF:: Ok, so when you are not racing, what do you like to do for fun?

CK:: I enjoy a lot of things. I really enjoy being in the water, boating, snorkeling, scuba diving, the beach. I love the sun and the fresh air and the water. I also love snowboarding, going to Colorado. I enjoy good dinners, good restaurants, good food, good atmosphere. Same as everyone else.

JF:: Do you travel?

CK:: Every Thursday.

JF:: I meant for fun.

CK:: If we get a weekend off, I go hop on a plane. This year, I went to Bermuda for three or four days. Last year, I went to the Exumas, outside the Bahamas, for diving and relaxing. We're going to go to Mexico this year. I'm going to go to Colorado and go snowboarding. We're going to go to St. Barths for a few days. I love to travel. That's why I don't take time off, because when I do take it off, we do it big.

JF:: Where would you like to go someday?

CK:: I want to go to a lot of different places. I want to go to Fiji badly. I am going to go to Europe soon. I would like to go to Dubai. I want to experience different places and different cultures, and that's something I haven't done. I want to get over the ocean.

JF:: I understand you've taken up yoga.

CK:: I just started. It's cool. I am enjoying it. I enjoy working out. I know I don't stretch enough pre- and post-workout, so doing yoga once a week has helped me with that. It's a great workout. I enjoy it.

JF:: What's your favorite pose?

CK:: I don't know the poses well enough that I have a favorite. I am still early in the learning stage.

JF:: More serious stuff now, of all the people you have worked for, or worked with, who taught you the most, either personally or professionally?

CK:: I definitely have two people come to mind initially. Rick Hendrick from a professional standpoint and a family-values standpoint. He's taught me a lot. Not that I have acted on all of it, but I have retained a lot of it and have a better understanding of morals and values. And Jimmie from a friendship and personal. He's taught me that there is a lot more to life than motorsports and how to balance that and enjoy some of the fruits of our labor and still maintain dedication to our occupation.

JF:: You built the 48 from scratch, what is your sense of pride at having built such a dominant team?

CK:: I'm very proud of what the 48 has become. I don't want this to sound wrong, and people take it the wrong way, but this is what I've wanted to do my whole life. People want children and a family, but I wanted a successful race team and I dedicated 20 years of my life to getting that. I am extremely proud every time I see it. Every time I see an article or a photograph or an interview … it's like a father, and you see the success. If you are Tim Tebow's dad, you are proud. That's how I am with this team, you know?

JF:: How many of your original guys are still with the team?

CK:: A lot of them are still here. Maybe in a different capacity. But a lot of them have transitioned into different roles.

JF:: Do you like out-thinking the competition?

CK:: I don't think it's out-thinking, I think maybe we out-prepare some of the other guys. That comes from a car standpoint. The guys do a good job of trying to ward off mechanical issues. Engineering. We do a good job of preparing leading up to a race, so when situations arise we know how to react. Not always – we do make mistakes – but we do a good of job of reacting to things as they unfold.

JF:: What are your ambitions beyond crew chiefing for Jimmie Johnson?

CK:: You don't know how many times I have been asked that recently. Are people just tired of me? Do they want me to go away? I don't know what the future holds.

I have what I consider the best team in motorsports, and I mean that globally. Am I going to do this for the rest of my life? Absolutely not. I can't maintain the pace I am going. I can do it for a few more years, but not forever.

Maybe I will open a scuba shop in the Caribbean. That would be great. Maybe I will be in a management-type role somewhere. I don't know. Is that an owner somewhere? A hot dog stand in New York? I don't know. Whatever it is, I will embrace it with the same passion I have for what I do now.

JF:: You'd be one intense hot dog man.

CK:: I'd sell a lot, that's for sure.

JF:: What do you say when people accuse you of cheating for your wins?

CK:: I don't cheat. I think it's easy for me to be labeled that way. We've done a lot of things to help the sport transition and develop new rules, but that doesn't mean we are cheating. We are pushing the limits.

Look at Tiger Woods, because he trains more and practices more and pays more attention to club selection and studies the greens, is he cheating? That's not true.

Look back at the things I've been in trouble for, and that was maybe two times that something was actually outside the rules. I think it's a bad label, a bad label for the team. But it doesn't bother me a lot because I know deep down it's not the case.

The fenders on the cars on Sonoma? Those were not illegal. The casual fan doesn't understand it. It's easy for someone to label that a person is a cheater, when in reality it wasn't cheating, it was just not done the way it should be.

JF:: How many championships can you guys win?

CK:: We have been in position to win every one of them. How many more? The way this team is maturing, I think we can go after it a few more years. I think we easily gave three away. A couple of those were my direct responsibility, and I want to pay them back. I think every year we are together we can battle for it, and I think we can go another five or six years going for it each year.

JF:: Seriously? Ten-time defending champions?

CK:: I think that would be fantastic. That would be great. Look, we're doing our job. This is what I get paid to do. This is what we do for a living. Mr. Hendrick pays us to win championships. We're just doing our jobs. I don't want people to discredit our accomplishments and what Jimmie has done. People forget, Jimmie and I were just talking about this last night, he's only been in a stock car for 10 years. Ten years. What this young man has done is amazing, and I think people need to better appreciate it.