This is part 2 of a 2 part series from a media teleconference interview that Chad Knaus and Alan Gustafson participated in with the media… huh, that’s redundant. Media teleconference, with the media. Eh… It’s Friday!
PART 2 of 2 (See part 1 of the Chad Knaus and Alan Gustafson intervew)
Q: In terms of sort of intensity of sitting atop the pit box, where does that race rank?
CHAD KNAUS: Right now not as intense as Homestead this weekend is going to be.
The one thing that I think you have to have in this industry is a short term memory. I can’t exactly tell you how that all played out that weekend. I know the stress level was high and intensity was high. The 97 car sat on the pole, the 24 car qualified well, we qualified well.
Q; Ray Evernham said that in order to be a really great crew chief you’ve got to have the willingness to kind of give up the other portions of your life while you’re doing it. Do you find that’s true, in order to be really dedicated to the team, that you have to let some other things go?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, it’s definitely a balance, and those are decisions that you’ve got to make. … Somebody is going to dedicate their life 24/7, 365, to their trade and their sport and their craft and they’re going to continuously get better.
You’ve got to make a decision in your life at what point in time is enough enough or when are you going to quit or is there ever a point when enough is enough. That’s difficult and something we all have to balance out.
But to Ray’s point, you’ve got to dedicate the majority of your adult life to it and your good years to be the best. Chad is the best right now, so he could give a lot of insight into that, I’m sure. But from my point of view, yeah, it’s very taxing.
CHAD KNAUS: I think, again, a lot of what Alan says is right. But I think he’s a good example of you don’t have to do that. I think that Alan has a wife, children, house, he does stuff with his family, and he’s extremely successful. So I don’t think you necessarily have to have that.
I know a lot of us have given up things like that, family life, children, lost wives. I mean, there’s been a lot of things that have gone on through different crew chiefs’ careers, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that it has to be that way. We do a good job of empowering the people that work with us to carry a lot of the load.
In 2005 I really dedicated everything I had to that year to try to win the championship, and we came up short, and Mr. Hendrick and Jimmie showed me at the end of that season, look, you can’t do this; you can’t do it at the level that you’re trying to do it. It wasn’t the level of success, it was the level of intensity, because it was like what Alan said, I was losing that edge that I had and I was beginning to flame out.
Q. Jimmie sort of flew under the radar there in the Busch Series. Chad, Was there any point that particularly sticks out in your mind when you first saw him do something, where you thought, oh, yeah, I’ve got something to work with here, this is going to be good?
CHAD: Nope. Not until we showed up at the test in Las Vegas because I never really paid any attention to him to be honest with you.
All I knew is coming into Hendrick Motorsports I would have the resources that we needed to be successful. I knew that I liked Jimmie from a personal standpoint, and I was like, shoot, let’s give it a shot, see what happens. From his driving ability, I knew nothing. I had never even watched a race that he had been in. I think the one race that he won in Chicago on fuel mileage was the only race I really even took notice to him doing that, and I knew Ryan Newman was catching him at the end. That’s all I really knew about it.
Q. We spoke to a Cup champion recently, and he said that Rick would not be satisfied unless he took you and Jimmie to the point where you broke the seven championship record. He just said Rick Hendrick has such a need to break records. Can you see yourself in that position at some point?
CHAD KNAUS: Yeah, I hope. That’s all I can say. We’ve been in a position to where we’ve been able to battle for the championship since 2002. So I would like to say that we could be in that position. But you don’t know. The competition level is so high that you don’t know what you’re going to do from one week to the next. Now you can’t realistically say you’re going to run Top 20 every week because the competition is so tough.
So I’m hoping that we have that. I know that Jimmie has got the talent. I know that we’ve got the talent here at Hendrick Motorsports to make that happen, and we know Mr. Hendrick likes shiny things.
We’re going to give it everything we’ve got and see where it shakes out, and hopefully we’re here six, seven years from now doing the same thing.
Q. Alan. How is working with Mark Martin different from other drivers you’ve worked with?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Mark has got obviously a lot of talent. He’s a great person. I think the biggest thing, his professionalism is considerably above everybody else I’ve worked with on and off the racetrack, the way he works at his trade, the way he communicates with the team, the way that he works with his teammates. Everything he does, he is very, very professional, very dedicated to what he does, and he does it in a really positive way.
You know, he’s a great teammate. He’s just a great person to be around. I think Chad would say the same thing. He’s a great complement to our organization. He helps all the drivers, helps all the teams, helps management, everybody. He’s just got a great perspective on racing and how to go about things, and we’re really fortunate to have him here at the company.
Q. Chad, heading into this weekend at Homestead Miami Speedway, it’s the only track on the Chase schedule that you guys haven’t won at, and I’m wondering if the reason is mainly because you’re going in protecting a lead, or is there something else about that track that you guys haven’t quite figured out yet?
CHAD KNAUS: Well, I think if you look at it, we’ve had obviously both scenarios play out there. We’ve had races that we’ve had to win to try to win the championship, we’ve had races that we needed to go in there and just be protective and try to make sure we didn’t lose it.
So I think that we haven’t hit on exactly what it is that we need there, although I feel like our package going into Homestead this year is probably the best that we’ve had yet, so I’m excited about that. I think we can go in there this weekend with the aggressiveness that we need. I think we can go down there and battle for the pole and hopefully get ourselves in position to race for the win.
But you know, we’re not going to do anything silly, either, to take ourselves out of contention or out of a place that we can possibly win this thing. So we’re just going to have to play it by ear and hopefully we can be in a position to race for it and hopefully win this thing.
The last question of the session was:
Q. Alan, Rick Hendrick as a guy, what is it about him that just promotes an incredible sense of loyalty?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Well, I don’t think there’s any person that I’ve ever met who was more compassionate and who treats fellow human beings better than Rick Hendrick.
I know when I started in the chassis shop, basically nowhere on his radar, he treated me like I was the best crew chief in the world or the president of Lowe’s or whatever you want to say. He was extremely, extremely good to me, and he has been, and he’s supported me through thick and thin.
It’s not that there’s not any magic. The fact is he’s willing to do more for people, for his people, than basically anybody else is. And he’s willing to put himself second time and time and time again for his company and for his people, and we all sincerely appreciate that, and we want to return the favor to him because he treats us so well.
Rick Hendrick… He’s just a great guy and somebody you will do anything for because he will treat you the same way.
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(See part 1 of the Chad Knaus and Alan Gustafson intervew)
