The euphoria of winning an unprecedented fourth consecutive Cup Series championship still hung in the air as Chad Knaus made his way to his place at the table where driver Jimmie Johnson and Marshall Carlson, general manager of Hendrick Motorsports, already had begun a lengthy interview session with the media.

Johnson had just finished fifth in the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, easily clinching the fourth title in a row for his No. 48 Chevrolet team. As usual, Knaus, his crew chief, had called all the shots during the race from the pit box.

When Johnson got anxious early in the race and became frustrated with another driver, Clint Bowyer, Knaus calmed him. When Johnson got greedy and impatient late and contemplated getting more aggressive and going for the race win, when finishing fifth more than sufficed for securing the history-making championship, Knaus talked sense into him.

It was vintage Knaus.

Always in control.

Ready at a moment's notice with all the right answers.

Anticipating how to survive the worst but expecting the best because of his trust in the team's meticulous preparation.

But as he fumbled clumsily with the microphone and tried to answer a mundane question -- simply, "your thoughts on the 2009 championship" -- Knaus suddenly seemed uncomfortable, just a bit unsure of himself, a little out of his element. For once, he seemed, well, human -- like a regular guy.

It was kind of nice to see.

"It's a bit of a dream. ... People ask what it feels like, and I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know," he said. "I hope that 10 years from now when I'm sitting on my patio with my son or daughter or my wife or whatever is going on there, I can sit back and reflect and look at photographs."

At this point, a laughing Johnson interrupted Knaus.

"I have three questions: Retired? Son? Daughter? You have a lot to do in 10 years, buddy," Johnson said.

Knaus replied: "It's all coming, man. It's all coming. This is my time."

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Knaus and girlfriend Lisa Rockelmann

Already married
The family isn't likely to come anytime soon, say those who seem to know him best, even though Knaus has dated his share of beautiful women. He recently dated Bruna Oliveira for three years and became engaged to her in early 2008, only to split in late 2008.

The fact is, Knaus already is married, according to Robbie Loomis, a former crew chief himself who once worked with Knaus at Hendrick Motorsports.

"I tell people all the time: Chad's work ethic, focus and commitment level kind of reminds me of Bill Belichick [head coach of the NFL's New England Patriots]. He's going to call it like he sees it, like it or not," Loomis said. "Chad always knew where he wanted to go. There probably are very few people who are as driven as he is.

"Being a crew chief in this sport, it's your whole life. I kid him all the time -- he's almost 40 years old and not married, so he's in trouble. But this has been his life. He's been married to that 48 car."

There may be a day coming when Knaus seeks to wed someone of flesh-and-bone instead of steel-and-rubber. But just hours after becoming the first crew chief in the 61-year history of NASCAR to win four consecutive championships, it was crystal clear that the foremost thought already creeping into his mind was how he was going to go about capturing No. 5.

"I just got the gut-wrenching feeling that 2010 is coming soon," Knaus said then, chuckling for a brief moment. "It just hit me. So wow."

“

Being a crew chief in this sport, it's your whole life. I kid him all the time -- he's almost 40 years old and not married, so he's in trouble. But this has been his life. He's been married to that 48 car.

”

-- ROBBIE LOOMIS

Former car owner and crew chief Ray Evernham gave Knaus his start in NASCAR more than two decades ago. Evernham won three championships himself with driver Jeff Gordon before other career pursuits came calling in his mind, and he said that eventually happens to everyone. But he admitted that he has no idea when Knaus will be ready to call off the dogs on the rest of the Sprint Cup field and move on to do something else.

Asked if he thinks Knaus eventually will need to seek another challenge, Evernham replied: "I don't know about that. You'll have to ask him about that. But everybody eventually does. That balance of commitment and sacrifice vs. quality of life, it just changes. I don't know when that happens. I think it's at a different point for everybody -- because what they're doing right now takes away from your quality of life.

"Chad's not married. Chad does nothing but work on that race car. He's got some really nice cars of his own -- but go ask him how many miles he put on 'em. They're probably all like mine. I've got cars that I won with Rick [Hendrick] that I've probably put 3,000 miles on in 10 years.

"Chad's the only one who can answer that question: When is enough enough?"

Knaus said he has been asked the question frequently lately, and indicated that he's not sure why. His response to the query generally is to answer with questions of his own: "Why? Is everybody that tired of me?"

Well, yes. There are legions of fans and 48 haters who are tired of Johnson and his crew chief winning everything in sight. They think Johnson is boring and Knaus is smug and arrogant and -- gasp! -- a cheater, the last of which causes both driver and crew chief to bristle the most.

While it's true that Knaus has a NASCAR rap sheet that rivals that of inaugural Hall of Fame inductee Junior Johnson -- six career penalties, four for technical violations, for a total of 125 championship points lost, $172,500 in fines and 12 weeks of probation -- he has long argued that all he does is push it to the edge like a good crew chief should. And it is interesting that while Johnson was celebrated in his day for his "if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin' " approach, Knaus is vilified for even approaching NASCAR's tolerances in a much more diligent and efficient inspection era.

"There are a lot of people who will say, 'Oh, well, it was a lot harder when we did it.' I'm not going to say that," said Evernham, who was crew chief for Gordon from 1992 through 1999. "I'm here to tell you it's a lot harder now to do it than when I did it.

"I look back on it now and I feel like in the '90s, you were walking on a tightrope, keeping all this stuff together. Now I look at it and these guys are walking on a razor blade with all that they have to do. They're handcuffed with what they can do with the race car. And there is so much money being thrown at their guys for pit crews and secrets in engineering that they probably have to spend more time working on keeping the team together than they do working on the race car."

Plus Johnson and Knaus have their fans as well, and those in the front lines of the sport who appreciate the generous piece of history they have carved out for themselves in the sport. Among Knaus' admirers is Dale Inman, who was crew chief for all seven of Richard Petty's driving championships and 198 of Petty's record 200 wins.

"They've done something else no one else has ever done along with their team, and Chad is the leader of the whole bunch. My hat's off to them," said Inman, whose eight championships overall as a crew chief are the most in NASCAR history. "We see what they can do every week. I think it's great.

"The trust they have in one another is special. From what I understand and what you can hear on the radio sometimes, Chad can get on Jimmie and Jimmie runs with it. At one point in our relationship, I would get onto Richard -- and of course he would get on me, too -- but we were able to have that back-and-forth communication without getting too mad at each other. They've got that same sort of thing going on."

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Knaus and team owner Rick Hendrick

Getting started
Now 38 years old, Knaus got his start in racing as a kid in Rockford, Ill., and at surrounding tracks around the Midwest where his father, John, drove the cars. He was 14 years old when John won the Rockford Speedway championship, giving Chad his first official title as a crew chief.

He drove some early on, and later dabbled in motorcycles, but always enjoyed working on race cars more than getting behind the wheel in them. Knaus recently told a reporter from The Associated Press that he didn't really remember much from his childhood other than being around cars.

"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," he said.

Knaus didn't go to college and has admitted it is the biggest regret of his life, but then that did give him a jump on others his age when it came to arriving on Evernham's doorstep looking for a job at Hendrick Motorsports in Concord, N.C. -- nearly 900 miles and more than 14½ hours from Rockford.

He immediately made an impression on his would-be boss.

“

He had been racing all his life and came from a racing family. He sat down and I asked him, 'Where do you want to be in five years?' And he said, 'I want your job.'

”

-- RAY EVERNHAM

"He was a young kid who wanted to race and had sacrificed to come down here," Evernham said. "He had been racing all his life and came from a racing family. He sat down and I asked him, 'Where do you want to be in five years?' And he said, 'I want your job.'

"So I hired him. That's the kind of guy I wanted."

Evernham, who has been in the sport for more than 25 years and went on to own his own race team, said Knaus is the "the only guy I interviewed for a job who ever said that."

Knaus smiled at the memory and said he thought his fate had been sealed when he said it -- and not in a good way. He thought he had blown the interview.

"I was so young," he said.

But instead of being put off by his brashness, Evernham embraced it. He hired Knaus to work on the No. 24 car of Gordon as a fabricator in the body shop.

"I thought it was really cool. I was like, 'Wow. Here's a guy who really knows where he wants to go. He wants to be a crew chief.' I was always told at that point that the best guys to have working for you were the guys who wanted to be where you were at," Evernham said.

Within a very short time, Knaus began setting himself apart from others who worked in the No. 24 shop. Evernham quickly elevated him to manage the entire chassis and body construction program as well as serve as an over-the-wall pit crew member. Thus, Knaus became a member of the famed Rainbow Warriors that was considered by far the best in NASCAR at the time, serving as a tire changer on Gordon's championship teams of 1995 and 1997.

"At that point, there were a lot of kids who had the same opportunity," Evernham said. "We had people come in, and for 30 days they would do whatever it took -- and for the next 30 days, they thought they were the greatest in the world. Once they got their sunglasses and their fancy sneakers, their work kind of slowed down a little bit.

"But Chad proved to me time and time again that he was relentless. He always wanted more. He did his job, plus. He was always willing to look for ways to get better. He was in the body shop and he wanted to learn about chassis. He did everything it took to become a crew chief."

Knaus makes a handsome salary now and is working on a contract extension that will keep him at Hendrick Motorsports. Even the over-the-wall pit crew guys on the 48 team pull in six-figure salaries, according to Evernham. But back in the day the job had little to offer in the way of monetary rewards.

"I think I paid him $6 an hour," Evernham said. "Chad put the time in because he was a guy who wanted to do extra. He wanted to be a fabricator. So he learned to be a fabricator and would learn everything he could about the fab shop. Then he wanted to be a crew chief. So he would say, 'Hey, man, can I help you set up the cars? Or can I work on shocks? Or can I do whatever?' I don't think it's ever been about money with him."

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Knaus and driver Jimmie Johnson

Meeting Jimmie
There came a time when Evernham could no longer keep Knaus around without holding him back in his career, and both men knew it.

Knaus left following the 1997 season to become car chief for Steve Park and later Darrell Waltrip at Dale Earnhardt Inc., spent a year with Tyler Jet Motorsports and then, with Evernham's assistance, landed a job with Melling Racing that led to Knaus' first crew chief opportunity, with driver Stacy Compton in 2001.

Then Evernham, by now heading up his own Dodge program, came calling again.

"I finally have a crew chief job for you. I want you to head up [driver] Casey Atwood's program," Evernham told Knaus.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone line.

"Man, I got another job offer," Knaus said.

"Look, you know unless it's Rick Hendrick, this is the place you need to be," Evernham admonished him.

"It is Rick Hendrick," Knaus replied.

"Well, then you need to go," Evernham said.

The fact is, there was this unknown rookie about to make his Cup Series debut in 2002 with Hendrick Motorsports. While Jimmie Johnson had been picked out of the crowd of wannabe drivers by Gordon and Rick Hendrick's son Ricky, it was Johnson who more or less picked Knaus to be his crew chief out of a group of three finalists.

"We basically just sat down at lunch and started talking," Johnson said. "Before we knew it, we got off on our own little side topic about motorcycles and other forms of racing, the Midwest and where he was from. I had spent some time up in that area doing ASA stuff.

"Before we knew it, a good amount of time had passed -- an hour and a half, two hours."

Hendrick officials Brian Whitesell and Ken Howes, who had arranged Johnson to meet with all three potential crew chiefs, had to break up the long-winded conversation that had broken out between Johnson and Knaus.

"Guys, this is going well but we need to get back to the shop, and I'm sure Chad has got to get back to work, too," one of them told Johnson.

Johnson says now that he walked away then knowing that he wanted Knaus to be his crew chief.

"When we left there, it was amazing how much time had passed and how well we had connected. I don't think we knew much about each other before that, but we felt like there was a bond there and something we wanted to build on," Johnson said.

Knaus said he knew very little about Johnson until that luncheon.

"We hit it off," Knaus said. "But I didn't know if he had any talent. I didn't know if he could drive at all. He didn't know if I knew what I was doing at all."

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Knaus celebrates with the No. 48 crew

Making history
To say the rest was history would be too trite. Knaus and Johnson had their tense moments as they matured together and began to build and cement the team that would become the sports dynasty it is today. They came close but failed to win championships in both 2003 and 2004, finishing second in points, but began sniping at each other more than usual when 2005 ended badly in a wreck at Homestead. Afterward, Hendrick called them into his office and offered them milk and cookies because, he said, "You're acting like children."

Hendrick also challenged them, asking if they wanted to keep building on what they had or tear it down and start all over separately with someone else. He said he knew what their answers would be but wanted to hear them say it to themselves, and to each other.

The current championship run commenced in 2006. Who knows how long until it is finished, or how many more championships the pair can rack up before they're done racing together? Hendrick said that driver and crew chief is a perfect match now, even if they may have been an imperfect one in the beginning, like most driver-crew chief combinations.

Of Johnson, Hendrick said: "He's always got his game face on so much, you've got to be one of the horses that are going to pull with him -- or you know you are going to get left out. Sometimes guys can't run at that pace. It turns out that Chad is, and maybe even more so. And I think that's why that combination works so well together."

“

I don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up. I hope I never have to grow up.

”

-- CHAD KNAUS

During the season, Knaus is up at 5:25 a.m. every day. When he's not at a track testing or racing, he's usually at his Hendrick Motorsports office by 7 a.m. for meetings with department heads, followed by various shop responsibilities. He'll work sometimes as late as 8 or 9 p.m., although he tries to wrap up by 6 so he can work out, which he aspires to do a minimum of four days a week.

It is a frantic pace. He rarely takes days off, even during the offseason. Occasionally around an offseason holiday, he may take a long weekend and go scuba diving or snowboarding somewhere.

But usually his mind and body remain focused on work. Even Knaus acknowledges he cannot keep it up forever.

"I don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up," Knaus said. "I hope I never have to grow up.

"I love my job, but I know I can't be a crew chief forever. I'll be honest: I can't run at this pace for 10 more years. It's impossible. But I love what I do. I engulf myself in what it is that I do, and there is nothing I would rather do. I have yet to get out of bed in the morning and not want to go to work, and that's a fact."

Evernham said one thing that Knaus has going for him is a decision back around the time of the milk-and-cookies meeting with Hendrick, when Knaus admitted he was trying to do too much himself and started delegating and trusting others under the 48 umbrella to do their jobs well without him also looking over their shoulders. That seems to have taken some of the pressure off Knaus, Evernham noted.

"This job, it wears you out. You put so much into it, and I didn't know how to pace myself," said Evernham, who admitted he got burnt out after seven years at Gordon's crew chief and again after nearly a decade of trying to run his own team. "Chad said [earlier this season] and this is something I never realized -- but every time you go through a season like this and you get off that [pit] box, when you have to perform at a high level like that, it just keeps taking a piece of you away and another piece of you away. You can't just keep getting on that airplane week after week just so tired that all you want to do is pass out. But you keep doing that until there is nothing left.

"Chad and that 48 team have found that pace that seems like it will allow them to survive the grind longer, where they will continue to rack up a lot of wins and championships -- because they don't seem to be burning themselves out."

When and if that time ever comes, Knaus will be ready and willing to start that family and hang out on the patio. It might just be at some faraway, exotic location, too.

"I've always said I might open a scuba shop in the Caribbean," he said.

If he does -- patio or no patio, kids or no kids, wife or no wife -- you can bet it soon will be the best scuba shop on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, or maybe even in the world.

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